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THE

ILIAD OF HOMER,

TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH BLANK VERSE
BY WILLIAM COWPER.

EDITED BY ROBERT SOUTHEY. LL.D.

WITH NOTES,
BY M.A. DWIGHT,
AUTHOR OF “GRECIAN AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY.”

NEW-YORK:
D. APPLETON & CO., 346 & 348 BROADWAY.
M.DCCC.LX.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1849,
By M.A. DWIGHT,
in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court for the Southern District of New York.

TO THE
RIGHT HONORABLE
EARL COWPER,
THIS
TRANSLATION OF THE ILIAD,
THE INSCRIPTION OF WHICH TO HIMSELF,
THE LATE LAMENTED EARL,
BENEVOLENT TO ALL,
AND ESPECIALLY KIND TO THE AUTHOR,
HAD NOT DISDAINED TO ACCEPT
IS HUMBLY OFFERED,
AS A SMALL BUT GRATEFUL TRIBUTE,
TO THE MEMORY OF HIS FATHER,
BY HIS LORDSHIP’S
AFFECTIONATE KINSMAN AND SERVANT

WILLIAM COWPER.

June 4, 1791.

PREFACE.

Whether a translation of Homer may be best executed in blank verse or in rhyme, is a question in the decision of which no man can find difficulty, who has ever duly considered what translation ought to be, or who is in any degree practically acquainted with those very different kinds of versification. I will venture to assert that a just translation of any ancient poet in rhyme, is impossible. No human ingenuity can be equal to the task of closing every couplet with sounds homotonous, expressing at the same time the full sense, and only the full sense of his original. The translator’s ingenuity, indeed, in this case becomes itself a snare, and the readier he is at invention and expedient, the more likely he is to be betrayed into the widest departures from the guide whom he professes to follow. Hence it has happened, that although the public have long been in possession of an English Homer by a poet whose writings have done immortal honor to his country, the demand of a new one, and especially in blank verse, has been repeatedly and loudly made by some of the best judges and ablest writers of the present day.

I have no contest with my predecessor. None is supposable between performers on different instruments. Mr. Pope has surmounted all difficulties in his version of Homer that it was possible to surmount in rhyme. But he was fettered, and his fetters were his choice. Accustomed always to rhyme, he had formed to himself an ear which probably could not be much gratified by verse that wanted it, and determined to encounter even impossibilities, rather than abandon a mode of writing in which he had excelled every body, for the sake of another to which, unexercised in it as he was, he must have felt strong objections.

I number myself among the warmest admirers of Mr. Pope as an original writer, and I allow him all the merit he can justly claim as the translator of this chief of poets. He has given us the Tale of Troy divine in smooth verse, generally in correct and elegant language, and in diction often highly poetical. But his deviations are so many, occasioned chiefly by the cause already mentioned, that, much as he has done, and valuable as his work is on some accounts, it was yet in the humble province of a translator that I thought it possible even for me to fellow him with some advantage.

That he has sometimes altogether suppressed the sense of his author, and has not seldom intermingled his own ideas with it, is a remark which, on this occasion, nothing but necessity should have extorted from me. But we differ sometimes so widely in our matter, that unless this remark, invidious as it seems, be premised, I know not how to obviate a suspicion, on the one hand, of careless oversight, or of factitious embellishment on the other. On this head, therefore, the English reader is to be admonished, that the matter found in me, whether he like it or not, is found also in Homer, and that the matter not found in me, how much soever he may admire it, is found only in Mr. Pope. I have omitted nothing; I have invented nothing.

There is indisputably a wide difference between the case of an original writer in rhyme and a translator. In an original work the author is free; if the rhyme be of difficult attainment, and he cannot find it in one direction, he is at liberty to seek it in another; the matter that will not accommodate itself to his occasions he may discard, adopting such as will. But in a translation no such option is allowable; the sense of the author is required, and we do not surrender it willingly even to the plea of necessity. Fidelity is indeed of the very essence of translation, and the term itself implies it. For which reason, if we suppress the sense of our original, and force into its place our own, we may call our work an imitation, if we please, or perhaps a paraphrase, but it is no longer the same author only in a different dress, and therefore it is not translation. Should a painter, professing to draw the likeness of a beautiful woman, give her more or fewer features than belong to her, and a general cast of countenance of his own invention, he might be said to have produced a jeu d’esprit, a curiosity perhaps in its way, but by no means the lady in question.

It will however be necessary to speak a little more largely to this subject, on which discordant opinions prevail even among good judges.

The free and the close translation have, each, their advocates. But inconveniences belong to both. The former can hardly be true to the original author’s style and manner, and the latter is apt to be servile. The one loses his peculiarities, and the other his spirit. Were it possible, therefore, to find an exact medium, a manner so close that it should let slip nothing of the text, nor mingle any thing extraneous with it, and at the same time so free as to have an air of originality, this seems precisely the mode in which an author might be best rendered. I can assure my readers from my own experience, that to discover this very delicate line is difficult, and to proceed by it when found, through the whole length of a poet voluminous as Homer, nearly impossible. I can only pretend to have endeavored it.

It is an opinion commonly received, but, like many others, indebted for its prevalence to mere want of examination, that a translator should imagine to himself the style which his author would probably have used, had the language into which he is rendered been his own. A direction which wants nothing but practicability to recommend it. For suppose six persons, equally qualified for the task, employed to translate the same Ancient into their own language, with this rule to guide them. In the event it would be found, that each had fallen on a manner different from that of all the rest, and by probable inference it would follow that none had fallen on the right. On the whole, therefore, as has been said, the translation which partakes equally of fidelity and liberality, that is close, but not so close as to be servile, free, but not so free as to be licentious, promises fairest; and my ambition will be sufficiently gratified, if such of my readers as are able, and will take the pains to compare me in this respect with Homer, shall judge that I have in any measure attained a point so difficult.

As to energy and harmony, two grand requisites in a translation of this most energetic and most harmonious of all poets, it is neither my purpose nor my wish, should I be found deficient in either, or in both, to shelter myself under an unfilial imputation of blame to my mother-tongue. Our language is indeed less musical than the Greek, and there is no language with which I am at all acquainted that is not. But it is musical enough for the purposes of melodious verse, and if it seem to fail, on whatsoever occasion, in energy, the blame is due, not to itself, but to the unskilful manager of it. For so long as Milton’s works, whether his prose or his verse, shall exist, so long there will be abundant proof that no subject, however important, however sublime, can demand greater force of expression than is within the compass of the English language.

I have no fear of judges familiar with original Homer. They need not be told that a translation of him is an arduous enterprise, and as such, entitled to some favor. From these, therefore, I shall expect, and shall not be disappointed, considerable candor and allowance. Especially they will be candid, and I believe that there are many such, who have occasionally tried their own strength in this bow of Ulysses. They have not found it supple and pliable, and with me are perhaps ready to acknowledge that they could not always even approach with it the mark of their ambition. But I would willingly, were it possible, obviate uncandid criticism, because to answer it is lost labor, and to receive it in silence has the appearance of stately reserve, and self-importance.

To those, therefore, who shall be inclined to tell me hereafter that my diction is often plain and unelevated, I reply beforehand that I know it,—that it would be absurd were it otherwise, and that Homer himself stands in the same predicament. In fact, it is one of his numberless excellences, and a point in which his judgment never fails him, that he is grand and lofty always in the right place, and knows infallibly how to rise and fall with his subject. Big words on small matters may serve as a pretty exact definition of the burlesque; an instance of which they will find in the Battle of the Frogs and Mice, but none in the Iliad.

By others I expect to be told that my numbers, though here and there tolerably smooth, are not always such, but have, now and then, an ugly hitch in their gait, ungraceful in itself, and inconvenient to the reader. To this charge also I plead guilty, but beg leave in alleviation of judgment to add, that my limping lines are not numerous, compared with those that limp not. The truth is, that not one of them all escaped me, but, such as they are, they were all made such with a wilful intention. In poems of great length there is no blemish more to be feared than sameness of numbers, and every art is useful by which it may be avoided. A line, rough in itself, has yet its recommendations; it saves the ear the pain of an irksome monotony, and seems even to add greater smoothness to others. Milton, whose ear and taste were exquisite, has exemplified in his Paradise Lost the effect of this practice frequently.

Having mentioned Milton, I cannot but add an observation on the similitude of his manner to that of Homer. It is such, that no person familiar with both, can read either without being reminded of the other; and it is in those breaks and pauses, to which the numbers of the English poet are so much indebted both for their dignity and variety, that he chiefly copies the Grecian. But these are graces to which rhyme is not competent; so broken, it loses all its music; of which any person may convince himself by reading a page only of any of our poets anterior to Denham, Waller, and Dryden. A translator of Homer, therefore, seems directed by Homer himself to the use of blank verse, as to that alone in which he can be rendered with any tolerable representation of his manner in this particular. A remark which I am naturally led to make by a desire to conciliate, if possible, some, who, rather unreasonably partial to rhyme, demand it on all occasions, and seem persuaded that poetry in our language is a vain attempt without it. Verse, that claims to be verse in right of its metre only, they judge to be such rather by courtesy than by kind, on an apprehension that it costs the writer little trouble, that he has only to give his lines their prescribed number of syllables, and so far as the mechanical part is concerned, all is well. Were this true, they would have reason on their side; for the author is certainly best entitled to applause who succeeds against the greatest difficulty, and in verse that calls for the most artificial management in its construction. But the case is not as they suppose. To rhyme, in our language, demands no great exertion of ingenuity, but is always easy to a person exercised in the practice. Witness the multitudes who rhyme, but have no other poetical pretensions. Let it be considered too, how merciful we are apt to be to unclassical and indifferent language for the sake of rhyme, and we shall soon see that the labor lies principally on the other side. Many ornaments of no easy purchase are required to atone for the absence of this single recommendation. It is not sufficient that the lines of blank verse be smooth in themselves, they must also be harmonious in the combination. Whereas the chief concern of the rhymist is to beware that his couplets and his sense be commensurate, lest the regularity of his numbers should be (too frequently at least) interrupted. A trivial difficulty this, compared with those which attend the poet unaccompanied by his bells. He, in order that he may be musical, must exhibit all the variations, as he proceeds, of which ten syllables are susceptible; between the first syllable and the last there is no place at which he must not occasionally pause, and the place of the pause must be perpetually shifted. To effect this variety, his attention must be given, at one and the same time, to the pauses he has already made in the period before him, as well as to that which he is about to make, and to those which shall succeed it. On no lighter terms than these is it possible that blank verse can be written which will not, in the course of a long work, fatigue the ear past all endurance. If it be easier, therefore, to throw five balls into the air and to catch them in succession, than to sport in that manner with one only, then may blank verse be more easily fabricated than rhyme. And if to these labors we add others equally requisite, a style in general more elaborate than rhyme requires, farther removed from the vernacular idiom both in the language itself and in the arrangement of it, we shall not long doubt which of these two very different species of verse threatens the composer with most expense of study and contrivance. I feel it unpleasant to appeal to my own experience, but, having no other voucher at hand, am constrained to it. As I affirm, so I have found. I have dealt pretty largely in both kinds, and have frequently written more verses in a day, with tags, than I could ever write without them. To what has been here said (which whether it have been said by others or not, I cannot tell, having never read any modern book on the subject) I shall only add, that to be poetical without rhyme, is an argument of a sound and classical constitution in any language.

A word or two on the subject of the following translation, and I have done.

My chief boast is that I have adhered closely to my original, convinced that every departure from him would be punished with the forfeiture of some grace or beauty for which I could substitute no equivalent. The epithets that would consent to an English form I have preserved as epithets; others that would not, I have melted into the context. There are none, I believe, which I have not translated in one way or other, though the reader will not find them repeated so often as most of them are in Homer, for a reason that need not be mentioned.

Few persons of any consideration are introduced either in the Iliad or Odyssey by their own name only, but their patronymic is given also. To this ceremonial I have generally attended, because it is a circumstance of my author’s manner.

Homer never allots less than a whole line to the introduction of a speaker. No, not even when the speech itself is no longer than the line that leads it. A practice to which, since he never departs from it, he must have been determined by some cogent reason. He probably deemed it a formality necessary to the majesty of his narration. In this article, therefore, I have scrupulously adhered to my pattern, considering these introductory lines as heralds in a procession; important persons, because employed to usher in persons more important than themselves.

It has been my point every where to be as little verbose as possible, though; at the same time, my constant determination not to sacrifice my author’s full meaning to an affected brevity.

In the affair of style, I have endeavored neither to creep nor to bluster, for no author is so likely to betray his translator into both these faults, as Homer, though himself never guilty of either. I have cautiously avoided all terms of new invention, with an abundance of which, persons of more ingenuity than judgment have not enriched our language, but incumbered it. I have also every where used an unabbreviated fullness of phrase as most suited to the nature of the work, and, above all, have studied perspicuity, not only because verse is good for little that wants it, but because Homer is the most perspicuous of all poets.

In all difficult places I have consulted the best commentators, and where they have differed, or have given, as is often the case, a variety of solutions, I have ever exercised my best judgment, and selected that which appears, at least to myself, the most probable interpretation. On this ground, and on account of the fidelity which I have already boasted, I may venture, I believe, to recommend my work as promising some usefulness to young students of the original.

The passages which will be least noticed, and possibly not at all, except by those who shall wish to find me at a fault, are those which have cost me abundantly the most labor. It is difficult to kill a sheep with dignity in a modern language, to flay and to prepare it for the table, detailing every circumstance of the process. Difficult also, without sinking below the level of poetry, to harness mules to a wagon, particularizing every article of their furniture, straps, rings, staples, and even the tying of the knots that kept all together. Homer, who writes always to the eye, with all his sublimity and grandeur, has the minuteness of a Flemish painter.

But in what degree I have succeeded in my version either of these passages, and such as these, or of others more buoyant and above-ground, and especially of the most sublime, is now submitted to the decision of the reader, to whom I am ready enough to confess that I have not at all consulted their approbation, who account nothing grand that is not turgid, or elegant that is not bedizened with metaphor.

I purposely decline all declamation on the merits of Homer, because a translator’s praises of his author are liable to a suspicion of dotage, and because it were impossible to improve on those which this author has received already. He has been the wonder of all countries that his works have ever reached, even deified by the greatest names of antiquity, and in some places actually worshipped. And to say truth, were it possible that mere man could entitle himself by pre-eminence of any kind to divine honors, Homer’s astonishing powers seem to have given him the best pretensions.

I cannot conclude without due acknowledgments to the best critic in Homer I have ever met with, the learned and ingenious Mr. Fuseli. Unknown as he was to me when I entered on this arduous undertaking (indeed to this moment I have never seen him) he yet voluntarily and generously offered himself as my revisor. To his classical taste and just discernment I have been indebted for the discovery of many blemishes in my own work, and of beauties, which would otherwise have escaped me, in the original. But his necessary avocations would not suffer him to accompany me farther than to the latter books of the Iliad, a circumstance which I fear my readers, as well as myself, will regret with too much reason.[1]

I have obligations likewise to many friends, whose names, were it proper to mention them here, would do me great honor. They have encouraged me by their approbation, have assisted me with valuable books, and have eased me of almost the whole labor of transcribing.

And now I have only to regret that my pleasant work is ended. To the illustrious Greek I owe the smooth and easy flight of many thousand hours. He has been my companion at home and abroad, in the study, in the garden, and in the field; and no measure of success, let my labors succeed as they may, will ever compensate to me the loss of the innocent luxury that I have enjoyed, as a translator of Homer.

Footnote:

1. Some of the few notes subjoined to my translation of the Odyssey are by Mr. Fuseli, who had a short opportunity to peruse the MSS. while the Iliad was printing. They are marked with his initial.

PREFACE

PREPARED BY MR. COWPER,
FOR A
SECOND EDITION.

Soon after my publication of this work, I began to prepare it for a second edition, by an accurate revisal of the first. It seemed to me, that here and there, perhaps a slight alteration might satisfy the demands of some, whom I was desirous to please; and I comforted myself with the reflection, that if I still failed to conciliate all, I should yet have no cause to account myself in a singular degree unfortunate. To please an unqualified judge, an author must sacrifice too much; and the attempt to please an uncandid one were altogether hopeless. In one or other of these classes may be ranged all such objectors, as would deprive blank verse of one of its principal advantages, the variety of its pauses; together with all such as deny the good effect, on the whole, of a line, now and then, less harmonious than its fellows.

With respect to the pauses, it has been affirmed with an unaccountable rashness, that Homer himself has given me an example of verse without them. Had this been true, it would by no means have concluded against the use of them in an English version of Homer; because, in one language, and in one species of metre, that may be musical, which in another would be found disgusting. But the assertion is totally unfounded. The pauses in Homer’s verse are so frequent and various, that to name another poet, if pauses are a fault, more faulty than he, were, perhaps, impossible. It may even be questioned, if a single passage of ten lines flowing with uninterrupted smoothness could be singled out from all the thousands that he has left us. He frequently pauses at the first word of the line, when it consists of three or more syllables; not seldom when of two; and sometimes even when of one only. In this practice he was followed, as was observed in my Preface to the first edition, by the Author of the Paradise Lost. An example inimitable indeed, but which no writer of English heroic verse without rhyme can neglect with impunity.

Similar to this is the objection which proscribes absolutely the occasional use of a line irregularly constructed. When Horace censured Lucilius for his lines incomposite pede currentes, he did not mean to say, that he was chargeable with such in some instances, or even in many, for then the censure would have been equally applicable to himself; but he designed by that expression to characterize all his writings. The censure therefore was just; Lucilius wrote at a time when the Roman verse had not yet received its polish, and instead of introducing artfully his rugged lines, and to serve a particular purpose, had probably seldom, and never but by accident, composed a smooth one. Such has been the versification of the earliest poets in every country. Children lisp, at first, and stammer; but, in time, their speech becomes fluent, and, if they are well taught, harmonious.

Homer himself is not invariably regular in the construction of his verse. Had he been so, Eustathius, an excellent critic and warm admirer of Homer, had never affirmed, that some of his lines want a head, some a tail, and others a middle. Some begin with a word that is neither dactyl nor spondee, some conclude with a dactyl, and in the intermediate part he sometimes deviates equally from the established custom. I confess that instances of this sort are rare; but they are surely, though few, sufficient to warrant a sparing use of similar license in the present day.

Unwilling, however, to seem obstinate in both these particulars, I conformed myself in some measure to these objections, though unconvinced myself of their propriety. Several of the rudest and most unshapely lines I composed anew; and several of the pauses least in use I displaced for the sake of an easier enunciation.—And this was the state of the work after the revisal given it about seven years since.

Between that revisal and the present a considerable time intervened, and the effect of long discontinuance was, that I became more dissatisfied with it myself, than the most difficult to be pleased of all my judges. Not for the sake of a few uneven lines or unwonted pauses, but for reasons far more substantial. The diction seemed to me in many passages either not sufficiently elevated, or deficient in the grace of ease, and in others I found the sense of the original either not adequately expressed or misapprehended. Many elisions still remained unsoftened; the compound epithets I found not always happily combined, and the same sometimes too frequently repeated.

There is no end of passages in Homer, which must creep unless they are lifted; yet in such, all embellishment is out of the question. The hero puts on his clothes, or refreshes himself with food and wine, or he yokes his steed, takes a journey, and in the evening preparation is made for his repose. To give relief to subjects prosaic as these without seeming unreasonably tumid is extremely difficult. Mr. Pope much abridges some of them, and others he omits; but neither of these liberties was compatible with the nature of my undertaking. These, therefore, and many similar to these, have been new-modeled; somewhat to their advantage I hope, but not even now entirely to my satisfaction. The lines have a more natural movement, the pauses are fewer and less stately, the expression as easy as I could make it without meanness, and these were all the improvements that I could give them.

The elisions, I believe, are all cured, with only one exception. An alternative proposes itself to a modern versifier, from which there is no escape, which occurs perpetually, and which, choose as he may, presents him always with an evil. I mean in the instance of the particle (the). When this particle precedes a vowel, shall he melt it into the substantive, or leave the hiatus open? Both practices are offensive to a delicate ear. The particle absorbed occasions harshness, and the open vowel a vacuity equally inconvenient. Sometimes, therefore, to leave it open, and sometimes to ingraft it into its adjunct seems most advisable; this course Mr. Pope has taken, whose authority recommended it to me; though of the two evils I have most frequently chosen the elision as the least.

Compound epithets have obtained so long in the poetical language of our country, that I employed them without fear or scruple. To have abstained from them in a blank verse translation of Homer, who abounds with them, and from whom our poets probably first adopted them, would have been strange indeed. But though the genius of our language favors the formation of such words almost as much as that of the Greek, it happens sometimes, that a Grecian compound either cannot be rendered in English at all, or, at best, but awkwardly. For this reason, and because I found that some readers much disliked them, I have expunged many; retaining, according to my best judgment, the most eligible only, and making less frequent the repetitions even of these.

I know not that I can add any thing material on the subject of this last revisal, unless it be proper to give the reason why the Iliad, though greatly altered, has undergone much fewer alterations than the Odyssey. The true reason I believe is this. The Iliad demanded my utmost possible exertions; it seemed to meet me like an ascent almost perpendicular, which could not be surmounted at less cost than of all the labor that I could bestow on it. The Odyssey on the contrary seemed to resemble an open and level country, through which I might travel at my ease. The latter, therefore, betrayed me into some negligence, which, though little conscious of it at the time, on an accurate search, I found had left many disagreeable effects behind it.

I now leave the work to its fate. Another may labor hereafter in an attempt of the same kind with more success; but more industriously, I believe, none ever will.

PREFACE

BY
J. JOHNSON, LL.B.
CHAPLAIN TO THE BISHOP OF PETERBOROUGH.

I have no other pretensions to the honorable name of Editor on this occasion, than as a faithful transcriber of the Manuscript, and a diligent corrector of the Press, which are, doubtless, two of the very humblest employments in that most extensive province. I have wanted the ability to attempt any thing higher; and, fortunately for the reader, I have also wanted the presumption. What, however, I can do, I will. Instead of critical remark, I will furnish him with anecdote. He shall trace from beginning to end the progress of the following work; and in proportion as I have the happiness to engage his attention, I shall merit the name of a fortunate editor.

It was in the darkest season of a most calamitous depression of his spirits, that I was summoned to the house of my inestimable friend the Translator, in the month of January, 1794. He had happily completed a revisal of his Homer, and was thinking of the preface to his new edition, when all his satisfaction in the one, and whatever he had projected for the other, in a moment vanished from his mind. He had fallen into a deplorable illness; and though the foremost wish of my heart was to lessen the intenseness of his misery, I was utterly unable to afford him any aid.

I had, however, a pleasing though a melancholy opportunity of tracing his recent footsteps in the Field of Troy, and in the Palace of Ithaca. He had materially altered both the Iliad and Odyssey; and, so far as my ability allowed me to judge, they were each of them greatly improved. He had also, at the request of his bookseller, interspersed the two poems with copious notes; for the most part translations of the ancient Scholia, and gleaned, at the cost of many valuable hours, from the pages of Barnes, Clarke, and Villoisson. It has been a constant subject of regret to the admirers of “The Task,” that the exercise of such marvelous original powers, should have been so long suspended by the drudgery of translation; and in this view, their quarrel with the illustrious Greek will be, doubtless, extended to his commentators.[1]

During two long years from this most anxious period, the translation continued as it was; and though, in the hope of its being able to divert his melancholy, I had attempted more than once to introduce it to its Author, I was every time painfully obliged to desist. But in the summer of ninety-six, when he had resided with me in Norfolk twelve miserable months, the introduction long wished for took place. To my inexpressible astonishment and joy, I surprised him, one morning, with the Iliad in his hand; and with an excess of delight, which I am still more unable to describe, I the next day discovered that he had been writing.—Were I to mention one of the happiest moments of my life, it might be that which introduced me to the following lines:—

He had written these lines with a pencil, on a leaf at the end of his Iliad; and when I reflected on the cause which had given them birth, I could not but admire its disproportion to the effect. What the voice of persuasion had failed in for a year, accident had silently accomplished in a single day. The circumstance I allude to was this: I received a copy of the Iliad and Odyssey of Pope, then recently published by the Editor above mentioned, with illustrative and critical notes of his own. As it commended Mr. Cowper’s Translation in the Preface, and occasionally pointed out its merits in the Notes, I was careful to place it in his way; though it was more from a habit of experiment which I had contracted, than from well-grounded hopes of success. But what a fortunate circumstance was the arrival of this Work! and by what name worthy of its influence shall I call it? In the mouth of an indifferent person it might be Chance; but in mine; whom it rendered so peculiarly happy, common gratitude requires that it should be Providence.

As I watched him with an indescribable interest in his progress, I had the satisfaction to find, that, after a few mornings given to promiscuous correction, and to frequent perusal of the above-mentioned Notes, he was evidently settling on the sixteenth Book. This he went regularly through, and the fruits of an application so happily resumed were, one day with another, about sixty new lines. But with the end of the sixteenth Book he had closed the corrections of the year. An excursion to the coast, which immediately followed, though it promised an accession of strength to the body, could not fail to interfere with the pursuits of the mind. It was therefore with much less surprise than regret, that I saw him relinquish the “Tale of Troy Divine.”

Such was the prelude to the last revisal, which, in the month of January, ninety-seven, Mr. Cowper was persuaded to undertake; and to a faithful copy, as I trust, of which, I have at this time the honor to conduct the reader. But it may not be amiss to observe, that with regard to the earlier books of the Iliad, it was less a revisal of the altered text, than of the text as it stands in the first edition. For though the interleaved copy was always at hand, and in the multitude of its altered places could hardly fail to offer some things worthy to be preserved, but which the ravages of illness and the lapse of time might have utterly effaced from his mind, I could not often persuade the Translator to consult it. I was therefore induced, in the course of transcribing, to compare the two revisals as I went along, and to plead for the continuance of the first correction, when it forcibly struck me as better than the last. This, however, but seldom occurred; and the practice, at length, was completely left off, by his consenting to receive into the number of the books which were daily laid open before him, the interleaved copy to which I allude.

At the end of the first six books of the Iliad, the arrival of spring brought the usual interruptions of exercise and air, which increased as the summer advanced to a degree so unfavorable to the progress of Homer, that in the requisite attention to their salutary claims, the revisal was, at one time, altogether at a stand. Only four books were added in the course of nine months; but opportunity returning as the winter set in, there were added, in less than seven weeks, four more: and thus ended the year ninety-seven.

As the spring that succeeded was a happier spring, so it led to a happier summer. We had no longer air and exercise alone, but exercise and Homer hand in hand. He even followed us thrice to the sea: and whether our walks were

“on the margin of the land,
O’er the green summit of the” cliffs, “whose base
Beats back the roaring surge,”

“or on the shore
Of the untillable and barren deep,”

they were always within hearing of his magic song. About the middle of this busy summer, the revisal of the Iliad was brought to a close; and on the very next day, the 24th of July, the correction of the Odyssey commenced,—a morning rendered memorable by a kind and unexpected visit from the patroness of that work, the Dowager Lady Spencer!

It is not my intention to detain the reader with a progressive account of the Odyssey revised, as circumstantial as that of the Iliad, because it went on smoothly from beginning to end, and was finished in less than eight months.

I cannot deliver these volumes to the public without feeling emotions of gratitude toward Heaven, in recollecting how often this corrected Work has appeared to me an instrument of Divine mercy, to mitigate the sufferings of my excellent relation. Its progress in our private hours was singularly medicinal to his mind: may its presentment to the Public prove not less conducive to the honor of the departed Author, who has every claim to my veneration! As a copious life of the Poet is already in the press, from the pen of his intimate friend Mr. Hayley, it is unnecessary for me to enter on such extensive commendation of his character, as my own intimacy with him might suggest; but I hope the reader will kindly allow me the privilege of indulging, in some degree, the feelings of my heart, by applying to him, in the close of this Preface, an expressive verse (borrowed from Homer) which he inscribed himself, with some little variation, on a bust of his Grecian Favorite.

Ως τε πατηρ ω παιδι, και ουποτε λησομαι αυτε.

Loved as his Son, in him I early found
A Father, such as I will ne’er forget.

Footnote:

1. Very few signatures had at this time been affixed to the notes; but I afterward compared them with the Greek, note by note, and endeavored to supply the defect; more especially in the last three Volumes, where the reader will be pleased to observe that all the notes without signatures are Mr. Cowper’s, and that those marked B.C.V. are respectively found in the editions of Homer by Barnes, Clarke, and Villoisson. But the employment was so little to the taste and inclination of the poet, that he never afterward revised them, or added to their number more than these which follow;—In the Odyssey, Vol. I. Book xi., the note 32.—Vol. II. Book xv., the note 13.—The note10 Book xvi., of that volume, and the note 14, Book xix., of the same.

ADVERTISEMENT TO SOUTHEY’S EDITION

It is incumbent upon the present Editor to state the reasons which have induced him, between two editions of Cowper’s Homer, differing so materially from each other that they might almost be deemed different versions, to prefer the first.

Whoever has perused the Translator’s letters, must have perceived that he had considered with no ordinary care the scheme of his versification, and that when he resolved upon altering it in a second edition, it was in deference to the opinion of others.

It seems to the Editor that Cowper’s own judgment is entitled to more respect, than that of any, or all his critics; and that the version which he composed when his faculties were most active and his spirits least subject to depression,—indeed in the happiest part of his life,—ought not to be superseded by a revisal, or rather reconstruction, which was undertaken three years before his death,—not like the first translation as “a pleasant work, an innocent luxury,” the cheerful and delightful occupation of hope and ardor and ambition,—but as a “hopeless employment,” a task to which he gave “all his miserable days, and often many hours of the night,” seeking to beguile the sense of utter wretchedness, by altering as if for the sake of alteration.

The Editor has been confirmed in this opinion by the concurrence of every person with whom he has communicated on the subject. Among others he takes the liberty of mentioning Mr. Cary, whose authority upon such a question is of especial weight, the Translator of Dante being the only one of our countrymen who has ever executed a translation of equal magnitude and not less difficulty, with the same perfect fidelity and admirable skill.

In support of this determination, the case of Tasso may be cited as curiously in point. The great Italian poet altered his Jerusalem like Cowper, against his own judgment, in submission to his critics: he made the alteration in the latter years of his life, and in a diseased state of mind; and he proceeded upon the same prescribed rule of smoothing down his versification, and removing all the elisions. The consequence has been that the reconstructed poem is utterly neglected, and has rarely, if ever, been reprinted, except in the two great editions of his collected works; while the original poem has been and continues to be in such demand, that the most diligent bibliographer might vainly attempt to enumerate all the editions through which it has passed.

EDITOR’S NOTE.

It will be seen by the Advertisement to Southey’s edition of Cowper’s Translation of the Iliad, that he has the highest opinion of its merits, and that he also gives the preference to Cowper’s unrevised edition. The Editor of the present edition is happy to offer it to the public under the sanction of such high authority.

In the addition of notes I have availed myself of the learning of various commentators (Pope, Coleridge, Müller, etc.) and covet no higher praise than the approval of my judgment in the selection.

Those bearing the signature E.P.P., were furnished by my friend Miss Peabody, of Boston. I would also acknowledge my obligations to C.C. Felton, Eliot Professor of Greek in Harvard University. It should be observed, that the remarks upon the language of the poem refer to it in the original.

For a definite treatment of the character of each deity introduced in the Iliad, and for the fable of the Judgment of Paris, which was the primary cause of the Trojan war, the reader is referred to “Grecian and Roman Mythology.”

It is intended that this edition of the Iliad shall be followed by a similar one of the Odyssey, provided sufficient encouragement is given by the demand for the present volume.

CONTENTS.

THE
ILIAD OF HOMER,

TRANSLATED INTO
ENGLISH BLANK VERSE.

BOOK I.

ARGUMENT OF THE FIRST BOOK.

The book opens with an account of a pestilence that prevailed in the Grecian camp, and the cause of it is assigned. A council is called, in which fierce altercation takes place between Agamemnon and Achilles. The latter solemnly renounces the field. Agamemnon, by his heralds, demands Brisëis, and Achilles resigns her. He makes his complaint to Thetis, who undertakes to plead his cause with Jupiter. She pleads it, and prevails. The book concludes with an account of what passed in Heaven on that occasion.

[The reader will please observe, that by Achaians, Argives, Danaï, are signified Grecians. Homer himself having found these various appellatives both graceful and convenient, it seemed unreasonable that a Translator of him should be denied the same advantage.—Tr.]

BOOK I.

Achilles sing, O Goddess! Peleus’ son;
His wrath pernicious, who ten thousand woes
Caused to Achaia’s host, sent many a soul
Illustrious into Ades premature,
And Heroes gave (so stood the will of Jove)5
To dogs and to all ravening fowls a prey,
When fierce dispute had separated once
The noble Chief Achilles from the son
Of Atreus, Agamemnon, King of men.

Who them to strife impell’d? What power divine?10
Latona’s son and Jove’s.[1] For he, incensed
Against the King, a foul contagion raised
In all the host, and multitudes destroy’d,
For that the son of Atreus had his priest
Dishonored, Chryses. To the fleet he came15
Bearing rich ransom glorious to redeem
His daughter, and his hands charged with the wreath
And golden sceptre[2] of the God shaft-arm’d.

His supplication was at large to all
The host of Greece, but most of all to two,20
The sons of Atreus, highest in command.

Ye gallant Chiefs, and ye their gallant host,
(So may the Gods who in Olympus dwell
Give Priam’s treasures to you for a spoil
And ye return in safety,) take my gifts25
And loose my child, in honor of the son
Of Jove, Apollo, archer of the skies.[3]

At once the voice of all was to respect
The priest, and to accept the bounteous price;
But so it pleased not Atreus’ mighty son,30
Who with rude threatenings stern him thence dismiss’d.

Beware, old man! that at these hollow barks
I find thee not now lingering, or henceforth
Returning, lest the garland of thy God
And his bright sceptre should avail thee nought.35
I will not loose thy daughter, till old age
Steal on her. From her native country far,
In Argos, in my palace, she shall ply
The loom, and shall be partner of my bed.
Move me no more. Begone; hence while thou may’st.40

He spake, the old priest trembled and obey’d.
Forlorn he roamed the ocean’s sounding shore,
And, solitary, with much prayer his King
Bright-hair’d Latona’s son, Phœbus, implored.[4]

God of the silver bow, who with thy power45
Encirclest Chrysa, and who reign’st supreme
In Tenedos and Cilla the divine,
Sminthian[5] Apollo![6] If I e’er adorned
Thy beauteous fane, or on the altar burn’d
The fat acceptable of bulls or goats,50
Grant my petition. With thy shafts avenge
On the Achaian host thy servant’s tears.

Such prayer he made, and it was heard.[7] The God,
Down from Olympus with his radiant bow
And his full quiver o’er his shoulder slung,55
Marched in his anger; shaken as he moved
His rattling arrows told of his approach.
Gloomy he came as night; sat from the ships
Apart, and sent an arrow. Clang’d the cord
[8]Dread-sounding, bounding on the silver bow.[9]60
Mules first and dogs he struck,[10] but at themselves
Dispatching soon his bitter arrows keen,
Smote them. Death-piles on all sides always blazed.
Nine days throughout the camp his arrows flew;
The tenth, Achilles from all parts convened65
The host in council. Juno the white-armed
Moved at the sight of Grecians all around
Dying, imparted to his mind the thought.[11]
The full assembly, therefore, now convened,
Uprose Achilles ardent, and began.70

Atrides! Now, it seems, no course remains
For us, but that the seas roaming again,
We hence return; at least if we survive;
But haste, consult we quick some prophet here
Or priest, or even interpreter of dreams,75
(For dreams are also of Jove,) that we may learn
By what crime we have thus incensed Apollo,
What broken vow, what hecatomb unpaid
He charges on us, and if soothed with steam
Of lambs or goats unblemish’d, he may yet80
Be won to spare us, and avert the plague.

He spake and sat, when Thestor’s son arose
Calchas, an augur foremost in his art,
Who all things, present, past, and future knew,
And whom his skill in prophecy, a gift85
Conferred by Phœbus on him, had advanced
To be conductor of the fleet to Troy;
He, prudent, them admonishing, replied.[12]

Jove-loved Achilles! Wouldst thou learn from me
What cause hath moved Apollo to this wrath,90
The shaft-arm’d King? I shall divulge the cause.
But thou, swear first and covenant on thy part
That speaking, acting, thou wilt stand prepared
To give me succor; for I judge amiss,
Or he who rules the Argives, the supreme95
O’er all Achaia’s host, will be incensed.
Wo to the man who shall provoke the King
For if, to-day, he smother close his wrath,
He harbors still the vengeance, and in time
Performs it. Answer, therefore, wilt thou save me?100

To whom Achilles, swiftest of the swift.
What thou hast learn’d in secret from the God
That speak, and boldly. By the son of Jove,
Apollo, whom thou, Calchas, seek’st in prayer
Made for the Danaï, and who thy soul105
Fills with futurity, in all the host
The Grecian lives not, who while I shall breathe,
And see the light of day, shall in this camp
Oppress thee; no, not even if thou name
Him, Agamemnon, sovereign o’er us all.110

Then was the seer embolden’d, and he spake.
Nor vow nor hecatomb unpaid on us
He charges, but the wrong done to his priest
Whom Agamemnon slighted when he sought
His daughter’s freedom, and his gifts refused.115
He is the cause. Apollo for his sake
Afflicts and will afflict us, neither end
Nor intermission of his heavy scourge
Granting, till unredeem’d, no price required,
The black-eyed maid be to her father sent,120
And a whole hecatomb in Chrysa bleed.
Then, not before, the God may be appeased.

He spake and sat; when Atreus’ son arose,
The Hero Agamemnon, throned supreme.
Tempests of black resentment overcharged125
His heart, and indignation fired his eyes.
On Calchas lowering, him he first address’d.

Prophet of mischief! from whose tongue no note
Of grateful sound to me, was ever heard;
Ill tidings are thy joy, and tidings glad130
Thou tell’st not, or thy words come not to pass.
And now among the Danaï thy dreams
Divulging, thou pretend’st the Archer-God
For his priest’s sake, our enemy, because
I scorn’d his offer’d ransom of the maid135
Chrysëis, more desirous far to bear
Her to my home, for that she charms me more
Than Clytemnestra, my own first espoused,
With whom, in disposition, feature, form,
Accomplishments, she may be well compared.140
Yet, being such, I will return her hence
If that she go be best. Perish myself—
But let the people of my charge be saved
Prepare ye, therefore, a reward for me,
And seek it instant. It were much unmeet145
That I alone of all the Argive host
Should want due recompense, whose former prize
Is elsewhere destined, as ye all perceive.

To whom Achilles, matchless in the race.
Atrides, glorious above all in rank,150
And as intent on gain as thou art great,
Whence shall the Grecians give a prize to thee?
The general stock is poor; the spoil of towns
Which we have taken, hath already passed
In distribution, and it were unjust155
To gather it from all the Greeks again.
But send thou back this Virgin to her God,
And when Jove’s favor shall have given us Troy,
A threefold, fourfold share shall then be thine.

To whom the Sovereign of the host replied.160
Godlike Achilles, valiant as thou art,
Wouldst thou be subtle too? But me no fraud
Shall overreach, or art persuade, of thine.
Wouldst thou, that thou be recompensed, and I
Sit meekly down, defrauded of my due?165
And didst thou bid me yield her? Let the bold
Achaians give me competent amends,
Such as may please me, and it shall be well.
Else, if they give me none, I will command
Thy prize, the prize of Ajax, or the prize170
It may be of Ulysses to my tent,
And let the loser chafe. But this concern
Shall be adjusted at convenient time.
Come—launch we now into the sacred deep
A bark with lusty rowers well supplied;175
Then put on board Chrysëis, and with her
The sacrifice required. Go also one
High in authority, some counsellor,
Idomeneus, or Ajax, or thyself,
Thou most untractable of all mankind;180
And seek by rites of sacrifice and prayer
To appease Apollo on our host’s behalf.

Achilles eyed him with a frown, and spake.
Ah! clothed with impudence as with a cloak,
And full of subtlety, who, thinkest thou—185
What Grecian here will serve thee, or for thee
Wage covert war, or open? Me thou know’st,
Troy never wronged; I came not to avenge
Harm done to me; no Trojan ever drove
My pastures, steeds or oxen took of mine,190
Or plunder’d of their fruits the golden fields
Of Phthia[13] the deep-soil’d. She lies remote,
And obstacles are numerous interposed,
Vale-darkening mountains, and the dashing sea.
No, [14]Shameless Wolf! For thy good pleasure’s sake195
We came, and, [15]Face of flint! to avenge the wrongs
By Menelaus and thyself sustain’d,
On the offending Trojan—service kind,
But lost on thee, regardless of it all.
And now—What now? Thy threatening is to seize200
Thyself, the just requital of my toils,
My prize hard-earn’d, by common suffrage mine.
I never gain, what Trojan town soe’er
We ransack, half thy booty. The swift march
And furious onset—these I largely reap,205
But, distribution made, thy lot exceeds
Mine far; while I, with any pittance pleased,
Bear to my ships the little that I win
After long battle, and account it much.
But I am gone, I and my sable barks210
(My wiser course) to Phthia, and I judge,
Scorn’d as I am, that thou shalt hardly glean
Without me, more than thou shalt soon consume.[16]

He ceased, and Agamemnon thus replied
Fly, and fly now; if in thy soul thou feel215
Such ardor of desire to go—begone!
I woo thee not to stay; stay not an hour
On my behalf, for I have others here
Who will respect me more, and above all
All-judging Jove. There is not in the host220
King or commander whom I hate as thee,
For all thy pleasure is in strife and blood,
And at all times; yet valor is no ground
Whereon to boast, it is the gift of Heaven
Go, get ye back to Phthia, thou and thine!225
There rule thy Myrmidons.[17] I need not thee,
Nor heed thy wrath a jot. But this I say,
Sure as Apollo takes my lovely prize
Chrysëis, and I shall return her home
In mine own bark, and with my proper crew,230
So sure the fair Brisëis shall be mine.
I shall demand her even at thy tent.
So shalt thou well be taught, how high in power
I soar above thy pitch, and none shall dare
Attempt, thenceforth, comparison with me.235

He ended, and the big, disdainful heart
Throbbed of Achilles; racking doubt ensued
And sore perplex’d him, whether forcing wide
A passage through them, with his blade unsheathed
To lay Atrides breathless at his foot,240
Or to command his stormy spirit down.
So doubted he, and undecided yet
Stood drawing forth his falchion huge; when lo!
Down sent by Juno, to whom both alike
Were dear, and who alike watched over both,245
Pallas descended. At his back she stood
To none apparent, save himself alone,
And seized his golden locks. Startled, he turned,
And instant knew Minerva. Flashed her eyes
Terrific;[18] whom with accents on the wing250
Of haste, incontinent he questioned thus.

Daughter of Jove, why comest thou? that thyself
May’st witness these affronts which I endure
From Agamemnon? Surely as I speak,
This moment, for his arrogance, he dies.255

To whom the blue-eyed Deity. From heaven
Mine errand is, to sooth, if thou wilt hear,
Thine anger. Juno the white-arm’d alike
To him and thee propitious, bade me down:
Restrain thy wrath. Draw not thy falchion forth.260
Retort, and sharply, and let that suffice.
For I foretell thee true. Thou shalt receive,
Some future day, thrice told, thy present loss
For this day’s wrong. Cease, therefore, and be still.

To whom Achilles. Goddess, although much265
Exasperate, I dare not disregard
Thy word, which to obey is always best.[19]
Who hears the Gods, the Gods hear also him.

He said; and on his silver hilt the force
Of his broad hand impressing, sent the blade270
Home to its rest, nor would the counsel scorn
Of Pallas. She to heaven well-pleased return’d,
And in the mansion of Jove Ægis[20]-armed
Arriving, mingled with her kindred Gods.
But though from violence, yet not from words275
Abstained Achilles, but with bitter taunt
Opprobrious, his antagonist reproached.

Oh charged with wine, in steadfastness of face
Dog unabashed, and yet at heart a deer!
Thou never, when the troops have taken arms,280
Hast dared to take thine also; never thou
Associate with Achaia’s Chiefs, to form
The secret ambush.[21] No. The sound of war
Is as the voice of destiny to thee.
Doubtless the course is safer far, to range285
Our numerous host, and if a man have dared
Dispute thy will, to rob him of his prize.
King! over whom? Women and spiritless—
Whom therefore thou devourest; else themselves
Would stop that mouth that it should scoff no more.290
But hearken. I shall swear a solemn oath.
By this same sceptre,[22] which shall never bud,
Nor boughs bring forth as once, which having left
Its stock on the high mountains, at what time
The woodman’s axe lopped off its foliage green,295
And stript its bark, shall never grow again;
Which now the judges of Achaia bear,
Who under Jove, stand guardians of the laws,
By this I swear (mark thou the sacred oath)
Time shall be, when Achilles shall be missed;300
When all shall want him, and thyself the power
To help the Achaians, whatsoe’er thy will;
When Hector at your heels shall mow you down:
The Hero-slaughtering Hector! Then thy soul,
Vexation-stung, shall tear thee with remorse,305
That thou hast scorn’d, as he were nothing worth,
A Chief, the soul and bulwark of your cause.

So saying, he cast his sceptre on the ground
Studded with gold, and sat. On the other side
The son of Atreus all impassion’d stood,310
When the harmonious orator arose
Nestor, the Pylian oracle, whose lips
Dropped eloquence—the honey not so sweet.
Two generations past of mortals born
In Pylus, coëtaneous with himself,315
He govern’d now the third—amid them all
He stood, and thus, benevolent, began.

Ah! what calamity hath fall’n on Greece!
Now Priam and his sons may well exult,
Now all in Ilium shall have joy of heart320
Abundant, hearing of this broil, the prime
Of Greece between, in council and in arms.
But be persuaded; ye are younger both
Than I, and I was conversant of old
With Princes your superiors, yet from them325
No disrespect at any time received.
Their equals saw I never; never shall;
Exadius, Cœneus, and the Godlike son
Of Ægeus, mighty Theseus; men renown’d
For force superior to the race of man,330
Brave Chiefs they were, and with brave foes they fought,
With the rude dwellers on the mountain-heights
The Centaurs,[23] whom with havoc such as fame
Shall never cease to celebrate, they slew.
With these men I consorted erst, what time335
From Pylus, though a land from theirs remote,
They called me forth, and such as was my strength,
With all that strength I served them. Who is he?
What Prince or Chief of the degenerate race
Now seen on earth who might with these compare?340
Yet even these would listen and conform
To my advice in consultation given,
Which hear ye also; for compliance proves
Oft times the safer and the manlier course.
Thou, Agamemnon! valiant as thou art,345
Seize not the maid, his portion from the Greeks,
But leave her his; nor thou, Achilles, strive
With our imperial Chief; for never King
Had equal honor at the hands of Jove
With Agamemnon, or was throned so high.350
Say thou art stronger, and art Goddess-born,
How then? His territory passes thine,
And he is Lord of thousands more than thou.
Cease, therefore, Agamemnon; calm thy wrath;
And it shall be mine office to entreat355
Achilles also to a calm, whose might
The chief munition is of all our host.

To whom the sovereign of the Greeks replied,
The son of Atreus. Thou hast spoken well,
Old Chief, and wisely. But this wrangler here—360
Nought will suffice him but the highest place:
He must control us all, reign over all,
Dictate to all; but he shall find at least
One here, disposed to question his commands.
If the eternal Gods have made him brave,365
Derives he thence a privilege to rail?

Whom thus Achilles interrupted fierce.
Could I be found so abject as to take
The measure of my doings at thy lips,
Well might they call me coward through the camp,370
A vassal, and a fellow of no worth.
Give law to others. Think not to control
Me, subject to thy proud commands no more.
Hear yet again! And weigh what thou shalt hear.
I will not strive with thee in such a cause,375
Nor yet with any man; I scorn to fight
For her, whom having given, ye take away.
But I have other precious things on board;
Of those take none away without my leave.
Or if it please thee, put me to the proof380
Before this whole assembly, and my spear
Shall stream that moment, purpled with thy blood.

Thus they long time in opposition fierce
Maintained the war of words; and now, at length,
(The grand consult dissolved,) Achilles walked385
(Patroclus and the Myrmidons his steps
Attending) to his camp and to his fleet.
But Agamemnon order’d forth a bark,
A swift one, manned with twice ten lusty rowers;
He sent on board the Hecatomb:[24] he placed390
Chrysëis with the blooming cheeks, himself,
And to Ulysses gave the freight in charge.
So all embarked, and plow’d their watery way.
Atrides, next, bade purify the host;
The host was purified, as he enjoin’d,395
And the ablution cast into the sea.

Then to Apollo, on the shore they slew,
Of the untillable and barren deep,
Whole Hecatombs of bulls and goats, whose steam
Slowly in smoky volumes climbed the skies.400

Thus was the camp employed; nor ceased the while
The son of Atreus from his threats denounced
At first against Achilles, but command
Gave to Talthybius and Eurybates
His heralds, ever faithful to his will.405

Haste—Seek ye both the tent of Peleus’ son
Achilles. Thence lead hither by the hand
Blooming Brisëis, whom if he withhold,
Not her alone, but other spoil myself
Will take in person—He shall rue the hour.410

With such harsh message charged he them dismissed
They, sad and slow, beside the barren waste
Of Ocean, to the galleys and the tents
Moved of the Myrmidons. Him there they found
Beneath the shadow of his bark reclined,415
Nor glad at their approach. Trembling they stood,
In presence of the royal Chief, awe-struck,
Nor questioned him or spake. He not the less
Knew well their embassy, and thus began.

Ye heralds, messengers of Gods and men,420
Hail, and draw near! I bid you welcome both.
I blame not you; the fault is his alone
Who sends you to conduct the damsel hence
Brisëis. Go, Patroclus, generous friend!
Lead forth, and to their guidance give the maid.425
But be themselves my witnesses before
The blessed Gods, before mankind, before
The ruthless king, should want of me be felt
To save the host from havoc[25]—Oh, his thoughts
Are madness all; intelligence or skill,430
Forecast or retrospect, how best the camp
May be secured from inroad, none hath he.

He ended, nor Patroclus disobey’d,
But leading beautiful Brisëis forth
Into their guidance gave her; loth she went435
From whom she loved, and looking oft behind.
Then wept Achilles, and apart from all,
With eyes directed to the gloomy Deep
And arms outstretch’d, his mother suppliant sought.

Since, mother, though ordain’d so soon to die,440
I am thy son, I might with cause expect
Some honor at the Thunderer’s hands, but none
To me he shows, whom Agamemnon, Chief
Of the Achaians, hath himself disgraced,
Seizing by violence my just reward.445

So prayed he weeping, whom his mother heard
Within the gulfs of Ocean where she sat
Beside her ancient sire. From the gray flood
Ascending sudden, like a mist she came,
Sat down before him, stroked his face, and said.450

Why weeps my son? and what is thy distress?
Hide not a sorrow that I wish to share.

To whom Achilles, sighing deep, replied.
Why tell thee woes to thee already known?
At Thebes, Eëtion’s city we arrived,455
Smote, sack’d it, and brought all the spoil away.
Just distribution made among the Greeks,
The son of Atreus for his lot received
Blooming Chrysëis. Her, Apollo’s priest
Old Chryses followed to Achaia’s camp,460
That he might loose his daughter. Ransom rich
He brought, and in his hands the hallow’d wreath
And golden sceptre of the Archer God
Apollo, bore; to the whole Grecian host,
But chiefly to the foremost in command465
He sued, the sons of Atreus; then, the rest
All recommended reverence of the Seer,
And prompt acceptance of his costly gifts.
But Agamemnon might not so be pleased,
Who gave him rude dismission; he in wrath470
Returning, prayed, whose prayer Apollo heard,
For much he loved him. A pestiferous shaft
He instant shot into the Grecian host,
And heap’d the people died. His arrows swept
The whole wide camp of Greece, till at the last475
A Seer, by Phœbus taught, explain’d the cause.
I first advised propitiation. Rage
Fired Agamemnon. Rising, he denounced
Vengeance, and hath fulfilled it. She, in truth,
Is gone to Chrysa, and with her we send480
Propitiation also to the King
Shaft-arm’d Apollo. But my beauteous prize
Brisëis, mine by the award of all,
His heralds, at this moment, lead away.
But thou, wherein thou canst, aid thy own son!485
Haste hence to Heaven, and if thy word or deed
Hath ever gratified the heart of Jove,
With earnest suit press him on my behalf.
For I, not seldom, in my father’s hall
Have heard thee boasting, how when once the Gods,490
With Juno, Neptune, Pallas at their head,
Conspired to bind the Thunderer, thou didst loose
His bands, O Goddess! calling to his aid
The Hundred-handed warrior, by the Gods
Briareus, but by men, Ægeon named.[26]495
For he in prowess and in might surpassed
His father Neptune, who, enthroned sublime,
Sits second only to Saturnian Jove,
Elate with glory and joy. Him all the Gods
Fearing from that bold enterprise abstained.500
Now, therefore, of these things reminding Jove,
Embrace his knees; entreat him that he give
The host of Troy his succor, and shut fast
The routed Grecians, prisoners in the fleet,
That all may find much solace[27] in their King,505
And that the mighty sovereign o’er them all,
Their Agamemnon, may himself be taught
His rashness, who hath thus dishonor’d foul
The life itself, and bulwark of his cause.

To him, with streaming eyes, Thetis replied.510
Born as thou wast to sorrow, ah, my son!
Why have I rear’d thee! Would that without tears,
Or cause for tears (transient as is thy life,
A little span) thy days might pass at Troy!
But short and sorrowful the fates ordain515
Thy life, peculiar trouble must be thine,
Whom, therefore, oh that I had never borne!
But seeking the Olympian hill snow-crown’d,
I will myself plead for thee in the ear
Of Jove, the Thunderer. Meantime at thy fleet520
Abiding, let thy wrath against the Greeks
Still burn, and altogether cease from war.
For to the banks of the Oceanus,[28]
Where Æthiopia holds a feast to Jove,[29]
He journey’d yesterday, with whom the Gods525
Went also, and the twelfth day brings them home.
Then will I to his brazen-floor’d abode,
That I may clasp his knees, and much misdeem
Of my endeavor, or my prayer shall speed.

So saying, she went; but him she left enraged530
For fair Brisëis’ sake, forced from his arms
By stress of power. Meantime Ulysses came
To Chrysa with the Hecatomb in charge.
Arrived within the haven[30] deep, their sails
Furling, they stowed them in the bark below.535
Then by its tackle lowering swift the mast
Into its crutch, they briskly push’d to land,
Heaved anchors out, and moor’d the vessel fast.
Forth came the mariners, and trod the beach;
Forth came the victims of Apollo next,540
And, last, Chrysëis. Her Ulysses led
Toward the altar, gave her to the arms
Of her own father, and him thus address’d.

O Chryses! Agamemnon, King of men,
Hath sent thy daughter home, with whom we bring545
A Hecatomb on all our host’s behalf
To Phœbus, hoping to appease the God
By whose dread shafts the Argives now expire.

So saying, he gave her to him, who with joy
Received his daughter. Then, before the shrine550
Magnificent in order due they ranged
The noble Hecatomb.[31] Each laved his hands
And took the salted meal, and Chryses made
His fervent prayer with hands upraised on high.

God of the silver bow, who with thy power555
Encirclest Chrysa, and who reign’st supreme
In Tenedos, and Cilla the divine!
Thou prov’dst propitious to my first request,
Hast honor’d me, and punish’d sore the Greeks;
Hear yet thy servant’s prayer; take from their host560
At once the loathsome pestilence away!

So Chryses prayed, whom Phœbus heard well-pleased;
Then prayed the Grecians also, and with meal
Sprinkling the victims, their retracted necks
First pierced, then flay’d them; the disjointed thighs565
They, next, invested with the double caul,
Which with crude slices thin they overspread.
The priest burned incense, and libation poured
Large on the hissing brands, while, him beside,
Busy with spit and prong, stood many a youth570
Trained to the task. The thighs with fire consumed,
They gave to each his portion of the maw,
Then slashed the remnant, pierced it with the spits,
And managing with culinary skill
The roast, withdrew it from the spits again.575
Their whole task thus accomplish’d, and the board
Set forth, they feasted, and were all sufficed.
When neither hunger more nor thirst remained
Unsatisfied, boys crown’d the beakers high
With wine delicious, and from right to left580
Distributing the cups, served every guest.
Thenceforth the youths of the Achaian race
To song propitiatory gave the day,
Pæans[32] to Phœbus, Archer of the skies,
Chaunting melodious. Pleased, Apollo heard.585
But, when, the sun descending, darkness fell,
They on the beach beside their hawsers slept;
And, when the day-spring’s daughter rosy-palm’d
Aurora look’d abroad, then back they steer’d
To the vast camp. Fair wind, and blowing fresh,590
Apollo sent them; quick they rear’d the mast,
Then spread the unsullied canvas to the gale,
And the wind filled it. Roared the sable flood
Around the bark, that ever as she went
Dash’d wide the brine, and scudded swift away.595
Thus reaching soon the spacious camp of Greece,
Their galley they updrew sheer o’er the sands
From the rude surge remote, then propp’d her sides
With scantlings long,[33] and sought their several tents.

But Peleus’ noble son, the speed-renown’d600
Achilles, he, his well-built bark beside,
Consumed his hours, nor would in council more,
Where wise men win distinction, or in fight
Appear, to sorrow and heart-withering wo
Abandon’d; though for battle, ardent, still605
He panted, and the shout-resounding field.
But when the twelfth fair morrow streak’d the East,
Then all the everlasting Gods to Heaven
Resorted, with the Thunderer at their head,
And Thetis, not unmindful of her son,610
Prom the salt flood emerged, seeking betimes
Olympus and the boundless fields of heaven.
High, on the topmost eminence sublime
Of the deep-fork’d Olympian she perceived
The Thunderer seated, from the Gods apart.615
She sat before him, clasp’d with her left hand
His knees, her right beneath his chin she placed,
And thus the King, Saturnian Jove, implored.

Father of all, by all that I have done
Or said that ever pleased thee, grant my suit.620
Exalt my son, by destiny short-lived
Beyond the lot of others. Him with shame
The King of men hath overwhelm’d, by force
Usurping his just meed; thou, therefore, Jove,
Supreme in wisdom, honor him, and give625
Success to Troy, till all Achaia’s sons
Shall yield him honor more than he hath lost!

She spake, to whom the Thunderer nought replied,
But silent sat long time. She, as her hand
Had grown there, still importunate, his knees630
Clasp’d as at first, and thus her suit renew’d.[34]

Or grant my prayer, and ratify the grant,
Or send me hence (for thou hast none to fear)
Plainly refused; that I may know and feel
By how much I am least of all in heaven.635

To whom the cloud-assembler at the last
Spake, deep-distress’d. Hard task and full of strife
Thou hast enjoined me; Juno will not spare
For gibe and taunt injurious, whose complaint
Sounds daily in the ears of all the Gods,640
That I assist the Trojans; but depart,
Lest she observe thee; my concern shall be
How best I may perform thy full desire.
And to assure thee more, I give the sign
Indubitable, which all fear expels645
At once from heavenly minds. Nought, so confirmed,
May, after, be reversed or render’d vain.

He ceased, and under his dark brows the nod
Vouchsafed of confirmation. All around
The Sovereign’s everlasting head his curls650
Ambrosial shook,[35] and the huge mountain reeled.

Their conference closed, they parted. She, at once,
From bright Olympus plunged into the flood
Profound, and Jove to his own courts withdrew.
Together all the Gods, at his approach,655
Uprose; none sat expectant till he came,
But all advanced to meet the Eternal Sire.
So on his throne he sat. Nor Juno him
Not understood; she, watchful, had observed,
In consultation close with Jove engaged660
Thetis, bright-footed daughter of the deep,
And keen the son of Saturn thus reproved.

Shrewd as thou art, who now hath had thine ear?
Thy joy is ever such, from me apart
To plan and plot clandestine, and thy thoughts,665
Think what thou may’st, are always barred to me.

To whom the father, thus, of heaven and earth.
Expect not, Juno, that thou shalt partake
My counsels at all times, which oft in height
And depth, thy comprehension far exceed,670
Jove’s consort as thou art. When aught occurs
Meet for thine ear, to none will I impart
Of Gods or men more free than to thyself.
But for my secret thoughts, which I withhold
From all in heaven beside, them search not thou675
With irksome curiosity and vain.

Him answer’d then the Goddess ample-eyed.[36]
What word hath passed thy lips, Saturnian Jove,
Thou most severe! I never search thy thoughts,
Nor the serenity of thy profound680
Intentions trouble; they are safe from me:
But now there seems a cause. Deeply I dread
Lest Thetis, silver-footed daughter fair
Of Ocean’s hoary Sovereign, here arrived
At early dawn to practise on thee, Jove!685
I noticed her a suitress at thy knees,
And much misdeem or promise-bound thou stand’st
To Thetis past recall, to exalt her son,
And Greeks to slaughter thousands at the ships.

To whom the cloud-assembler God, incensed.690
Ah subtle! ever teeming with surmise,
And fathomer of my concealed designs,
Thy toil is vain, or (which is worse for thee,)
Shall but estrange thee from mine heart the more.
And be it as thou sayest,—I am well pleased695
That so it should be. Be advised, desist,
Hold thou thy peace. Else, if my glorious hands
Once reach thee, the Olympian Powers combined
To rescue thee, shall interfere in vain.

He said,—whom Juno, awful Goddess, heard700
Appall’d, and mute submitted to his will.
But through the courts of Jove the heavenly Powers
All felt displeasure; when to them arose
Vulcan, illustrious artist, who with speech
Conciliatory interposed to sooth705
His white-armed mother Juno, Goddess dread.

Hard doom is ours, and not to be endured,
If feast and merriment must pause in heaven
While ye such clamor raise tumultuous here
For man’s unworthy sake: yet thus we speed710
Ever, when evil overpoises good.
But I exhort my mother, though herself
Already warn’d, that meekly she submit
To Jove our father, lest our father chide
More roughly, and confusion mar the feast.715
For the Olympian Thunderer could with ease
Us from our thrones precipitate, so far
He reigns to all superior. Seek to assuage
His anger therefore; so shall he with smiles
Cheer thee, nor thee alone, but all in heaven.720

So Vulcan, and, upstarting, placed a cup
Full-charged between his mother’s hands, and said,

My mother, be advised, and, though aggrieved,
Yet patient; lest I see thee whom I love
So dear, with stripes chastised before my face,725
Willing, but impotent to give thee aid.[37]
Who can resist the Thunderer? Me, when once
I flew to save thee, by the foot he seized
And hurl’d me through the portal of the skies.
“From morn to eve I fell, a summer’s day,”730
And dropped, at last, in Lemnos. There half-dead
The Sintians found me, and with succor prompt
And hospitable, entertained me fallen.

So He; then Juno smiled, Goddess white-arm’d,
And smiling still, from his unwonted hand[38]735
Received the goblet. He from right to left
Rich nectar from the beaker drawn, alert
Distributed to all the powers divine.
Heaven rang with laughter inextinguishable
Peal after peal, such pleasure all conceived740
At sight of Vulcan in his new employ.

So spent they in festivity the day,
And all were cheered; nor was Apollo’s harp
Silent, nor did the Muses spare to add
Responsive melody of vocal sweets.745
But when the sun’s bright orb had now declined,
Each to his mansion, wheresoever built
By the lame matchless Architect, withdrew.[39]
Jove also, kindler of the fires of heaven,
His couch ascending as at other times750
When gentle sleep approach’d him, slept serene,
With golden-sceptred Juno at his side.

The first book contains the preliminaries to the commencement of serious action. First, the visit of the priest of Apollo to ransom his captive daughter, the refusal of Agamemnon to yield her up, and the pestilence sent by the god upon the Grecian army in consequence. Secondly, the restoration, the propitiation of Apollo, the quarrel of Agamemnon and Achilles, and the withdrawing of the latter from the Grecian army. Thirdly, the intercession of Thetis with Jupiter; his promise, unwillingly given, to avenge Achilles; and the assembly of the gods, in which the promise is angrily alluded to by Juno, and the discussion peremptorily checked by Jupiter. The poet, throughout this book, maintains a simple, unadorned style, but highly descriptive, and happily adapted to the nature of the subject.—Felton.

BOOK II.

ARGUMENT OF THE SECOND BOOK.

Jupiter, in pursuance of his purpose to distress the Grecians in answer to the prayer of Thetis, deceives Agamemnon by a dream. He, in consequence of it, calls a council, the result of which is that the army shall go forth to battle. Thersites is mutinous, and is chastised by Ulysses. Ulysses, Nestor, and Agamemnon, harangue the people; and preparation is made for battle. An exact account follows of the forces on both sides.

BOOK II.

[1]All night both Gods and Chiefs equestrian slept,
But not the Sire of all. He, waking soon,
Mused how to exalt Achilles, and destroy
No few in battle at the Grecian fleet.
This counsel, at the last, as best he chose5
And likeliest; to dispatch an evil Dream
To Agamemnon’s tent, and to his side
The phantom summoning, him thus addressed.

Haste, evil Dream! Fly to the Grecian fleet,
And, entering royal Agamemnon’s tent,10
His ear possess thou thus, omitting nought
Of all that I enjoin thee. Bid him arm
His universal host, for that the time
When the Achaians shall at length possess
Wide Ilium, hath arrived. The Gods above15
No longer dwell at variance. The request
Of Juno hath prevail’d; now, wo to Troy!
So charged, the Dream departed. At the ships
Well-built arriving of Achaia’s host,
He Agamemnon, son of Atreus, sought.20
Him sleeping in his tent he found, immersed
In soft repose ambrosial. At his head
The shadow stood, similitude exact
Of Nestor, son of Neleus; sage, with whom
In Agamemnon’s thought might none compare.25
His form assumed, the sacred Dream began.

Oh son of Atreus the renown’d in arms
And in the race! Sleep’st thou? It ill behoves
To sleep all night the man of high employ,
And charged, as thou art, with a people’s care.30
Now, therefore, mark me well, who, sent from Jove,
Inform thee, that although so far remote,
He yet compassionates and thinks on thee
With kind solicitude. He bids thee arm
Thy universal host, for that the time35
When the Achaians shall at length possess
Wide Ilium, hath arrived. The Gods above
No longer dwell at variance. The requests
Of Juno have prevail’d. Now, wo to Troy
From Jove himself! Her fate is on the wing.40
Awaking from thy dewy slumbers, hold
In firm remembrance all that thou hast heard.

So spake the Dream, and vanishing, him left
In false hopes occupied and musings vain.
Full sure he thought, ignorant of the plan45
By Jove design’d, that day the last of Troy.
Fond thought! For toils and agonies to Greeks
And Trojans both, in many a bloody field
To be endured, the Thunderer yet ordain’d.
Starting he woke, and seeming still to hear50
The warning voice divine, with hasty leap
Sprang from his bed, and sat.[2] His fleecy vest
New-woven he put on, and mantle wide;
His sandals fair to his unsullied feet
He braced, and slung his argent-studded sword.55
Then, incorruptible for evermore
The sceptre of his sires he took, with which
He issued forth into the camp of Greece.

Aurora now on the Olympian heights
Proclaiming stood new day to all in heaven,60
When he his clear-voiced heralds bade convene
The Greeks in council. Went the summons forth
Into all quarters, and the throng began.
First, at the ship of Nestor, Pylian King,[3]
The senior Chiefs for high exploits renown’d65
He gather’d, whom he prudent thus address’d.

My fellow warriors, hear! A dream from heaven,
Amid the stillness of the vacant night
Approach’d me, semblance close in stature, bulk,
And air, of noble Nestor. At mine head70
The shadow took his stand, and thus he spake.

Oh son of Atreus the renown’d in arms
And in the race, sleep’st thou? It ill behoves
To sleep all night the man of high employ,
And charged as thou art with a people’s care.75
Now, therefore, mark me well, who, sent from Jove,
Inform thee, that although so far remote,
He yet compassionates and thinks on thee
With kind solicitude. He bids thee arm
Thy universal host; for that the time80
When the Achaians shall at length possess
Wide Ilium, hath arrived. The Gods above
No longer dwell at variance. The requests
Of Juno have prevail’d. Now, wo to Troy
From Jove himself! Her fate is on the wing.85
Charge this on thy remembrance. Thus he spake,
Then vanished suddenly, and I awoke.
Haste therefore, let us arm, if arm we may,[4]
The warlike sons of Greece; but first, myself
Will prove them, recommending instant flight90
With all our ships, and ye throughout the host
Dispersed, shall, next, encourage all to stay.

He ceased, and sat; when in the midst arose
Of highest fame for wisdom, Nestor, King
Of sandy Pylus, who them thus bespake.95

Friends, Counsellors, and Leaders of the Greeks!
Had any meaner Argive told his dream,
We had pronounced it false, and should the more
Have shrunk from battle; but the dream is his
Who boasts himself our highest in command.100
Haste, arm we, if we may, the sons of Greece.

So saying, he left the council; him, at once
The sceptred Chiefs, obedient to his voice,
Arising, follow’d; and the throng began.
As from the hollow rock bees stream abroad,105
And in succession endless seek the fields,
Now clustering, and now scattered far and near,
In spring-time, among all the new-blown flowers,
So they to council swarm’d, troop after troop,
Grecians of every tribe, from camp and fleet110
Assembling orderly o’er all the plain
Beside the shore of Ocean. In the midst
A kindling rumor, messenger of Jove,
Impell’d them, and they went. Loud was the din
Of the assembling thousands; groan’d the earth115
When down they sat, and murmurs ran around.
Nine heralds cried aloud—Will ye restrain
Your clamors, that your heaven-taught Kings may speak?
Scarce were they settled, and the clang had ceased,
When Agamemnon, sovereign o’er them all,120
Sceptre in hand, arose. (That sceptre erst
Vulcan with labor forged, and to the hand
Consign’d it of the King, Saturnian Jove;
Jove to the vanquisher[5] of Ino’s[6] guard,
And he to Pelops; Pelops in his turn,125
To royal Atreus; Atreus at his death
Bequeath’d it to Thyestes rich in flocks,
And rich Thyestes left it to be borne
By Agamemnon, symbol of his right
To empire over Argos and her isles)130
On that he lean’d, and rapid, thus began.[7]

Friends, Grecian Heroes, ministers of Mars!
Ye see me here entangled in the snares
Of unpropitious Jove. He promised once,
And with a nod confirm’d it, that with spoils135
Of Ilium laden, we should hence return;
But now, devising ill, he sends me shamed,
And with diminished numbers, home to Greece.
So stands his sovereign pleasure, who hath laid
The bulwarks of full many a city low,140
And more shall level, matchless in his might.
That such a numerous host of Greeks as we,
Warring with fewer than ourselves, should find
No fruit of all our toil, (and none appears)
Will make us vile with ages yet to come.145
For should we now strike truce, till Greece and Troy
Might number each her own, and were the Greeks
Distributed in bands, ten Greeks in each,
Our banded decads should exceed so far
Their units, that all Troy could not supply150
For every ten, a man, to fill us wine;
So far the Achaians, in my thought, surpass
The native Trojans. But in Troy are those
Who baffle much my purpose; aids derived
From other states, spear-arm’d auxiliars, firm155
In the defence of Ilium’s lofty towers.
Nine years have passed us over, nine long years;
Our ships are rotted, and our tackle marr’d,
And all our wives and little-ones at home
Sit watching our return, while this attempt160
Hangs still in doubt, for which that home we left.
Accept ye then my counsel. Fly we swift
With all our fleet back to our native land,
Hopeless of Troy, not yet to be subdued.

So spake the King, whom all the concourse heard165
With minds in tumult toss’d; all, save the few,
Partners of his intent. Commotion shook
The whole assembly, such as heaves the flood
Of the Icarian Deep, when South and East
Burst forth together from the clouds of Jove.170
And as when vehement the West-wind falls
On standing corn mature, the loaded ears
Innumerable bow before the gale,
So was the council shaken. With a shout
All flew toward the ships; uprais’d, the dust175
Stood o’er them; universal was the cry,
“Now clear the passages, strike down the props,
Set every vessel free, launch, and away!”
Heaven rang with exclamation of the host
All homeward bent, and launching glad the fleet.180
Then baffled Fate had the Achaians seen
Returning premature, but Juno thus,
With admonition quick to Pallas spake.

Unconquer’d daughter of Jove Ægis-arm’d!
Ah foul dishonor! Is it thus at last185
That the Achaians on the billows borne,
Shall seek again their country, leaving here,
To be the vaunt of Ilium and her King,
Helen of Argos, in whose cause the Greeks
Have numerous perish’d from their home remote?190
Haste! Seek the mail-arm’d multitude, by force
Detain them of thy soothing speech, ere yet
All launch their oary barks into the flood.

She spake, nor did Minerva not comply,
But darting swift from the Olympian heights,195
Reach’d soon Achaia’s fleet. There, she perceived
Prudent as Jove himself, Ulysses; firm
He stood; he touch’d not even with his hand
His sable bark, for sorrow whelm’d his soul.
The Athenæan Goddess azure-eyed200
Beside him stood, and thus the Chief bespake.

Laertes’ noble son, for wiles renown’d!
Why seek ye, thus precipitate, your ships?
Intend ye flight? And is it thus at last,
That the Achaians on the billows borne,205
Shall seek again their country, leaving here,
To be the vaunt of Ilium and her King,
Helen of Argos, in whose cause the Greeks
Have numerous perish’d from their home remote?
Delay not. Rush into the throng; by force210
Detain them of thy soothing speech, ere yet
All launch their oary barks into the flood.

She ceased, whom by her voice Ulysses knew,
Casting his mantle from him, which his friend
Eurybates the Ithacensian caught,215
He ran; and in his course meeting the son
Of Atreus, Agamemnon, from his hand
The everlasting sceptre quick received,
Which bearing, through Achaia’s fleet he pass’d.
What King soever, or distinguish’d Greek220
He found, approaching to his side, in terms
Of gentle sort he stay’d him. Sir, he cried,
It is unseemly that a man renown’d
As thou, should tremble. Go—Resume the seat
Which thou hast left, and bid the people sit.225
Thou know’st not clearly yet the monarch’s mind.
He proves us now, but soon he will chastize.
All were not present; few of us have heard
His speech this day in council. Oh, beware,
Lest in resentment of this hasty course230
Irregular, he let his anger loose.
Dread is the anger of a King; he reigns
By Jove’s own ordinance, and is dear to Jove,

But what plebeian base soe’er he heard
Stretching his throat to swell the general cry,235
He laid the sceptre smartly on his back,
With reprimand severe. Fellow, he said,
Sit still; hear others; thy superiors hear.
For who art thou? A dastard and a drone,
Of none account in council, or in arms.240
By no means may we all alike bear sway
At Ilium; such plurality of Kings
Were evil. One suffices. One, to whom
The son of politic Saturn hath assign’d
The sceptre, and inforcement of the laws,245
That he may rule us as a monarch ought.[8]

With such authority the troubled host
He sway’d; they, quitting camp and fleet again
Rush’d back to council; deafening was the sound
As when a billow of the boisterous deep250
Some broad beach dashes, and the Ocean roars.

The host all seated, and the benches fill’d,
Thersites only of loquacious tongue
Ungovern’d, clamor’d mutinous; a wretch
Of utterance prompt, but in coarse phrase obscene255
Deep learn’d alone, with which to slander Kings.
Might he but set the rabble in a roar,
He cared not with what jest; of all from Greece
To Ilium sent, his country’s chief reproach.
Cross-eyed he was, and halting moved on legs260
Ill-pair’d; his gibbous shoulders o’er his breast
Contracted, pinch’d it; to a peak his head
Was moulded sharp, and sprinkled thin with hair
Of starveling length, flimsy and soft as down.
Achilles and Ulysses had incurr’d265
Most his aversion; them he never spared;
But now, imperial Agamemnon self
In piercing accents stridulous he charged
With foul reproach. The Grecians with contempt
Listen’d, and indignation, while with voice270
At highest pitch, he thus the monarch mock’d.

What wouldst thou now? Whereof is thy complaint
Now, Agamemnon? Thou hast fill’d thy tents
With treasure, and the Grecians, when they take
A city, choose the loveliest girls for thee.275
Is gold thy wish? More gold? A ransom brought
By some chief Trojan for his son’s release
Whom I, or other valiant Greek may bind?
Or wouldst thou yet a virgin, one, by right
Another’s claim, but made by force thine own?280
It was not well, great Sir, that thou shouldst bring
A plague on the Achaians, as of late.
But come, my Grecian sisters, soldiers named
Unfitly, of a sex too soft for war,
Come, let us homeward: let him here digest285
What he shall gorge, alone; that he may learn
If our assistance profit him or not.
For when he shamed Achilles, he disgraced
A Chief far worthier than himself, whose prize
He now withholds. But tush,—Achilles lacks290
Himself the spirit of a man; no gall
Hath he within him, or his hand long since
Had stopp’d that mouth,[9] that it should scoff no more.

Thus, mocking royal Agamemnon, spake
Thersites. Instant starting to his side,
295
Noble Ulysses with indignant brows
Survey’d him, and him thus reproved severe.

Thersites! Railer!—peace. Think not thyself,
Although thus eloquent, alone exempt
From obligation not to slander Kings.300
I deem thee most contemptible, the worst
Of Agamemnon’s followers to the war;
Presume not then to take the names revered
Of Sovereigns on thy sordid lips, to asperse
Their sacred character, and to appoint305
The Greeks a time when they shall voyage home.
How soon, how late, with what success at last
We shall return, we know not: but because
Achaia’s heroes numerous spoils allot
To Agamemnon, Leader of the host,310
Thou therefore from thy seat revilest the King.
But mark me. If I find thee, as even now,
Raving and foaming at the lips again,
May never man behold Ulysses’ head
On these my shoulders more, and may my son315
Prove the begotten of another Sire,
If I not strip thee to that hide of thine
As bare as thou wast born, and whip thee hence
Home to thy galley, sniveling like a boy.

He ceased, and with his sceptre on the back320
And shoulders smote him. Writhing to and fro,
He wept profuse, while many a bloody whelk
Protuberant beneath the sceptre sprang.
Awe-quell’d he sat, and from his visage mean,
Deep-sighing, wiped the rheums. It was no time325
For mirth, yet mirth illumined every face,
And laughing, thus they spake. A thousand acts
Illustrious, both by well-concerted plans
And prudent disposition of the host
Ulysses hath achieved, but this by far330
Transcends his former praise, that he hath quell’d
Such contumelious rhetoric profuse.
The valiant talker shall not soon, we judge,
Take liberties with royal names again.[10]
So spake the multitude. Then, stretching forth335
The sceptre, city-spoiler Chief, arose
Ulysses. Him beside, herald in form,
Appeared Minerva. Silence she enjoined
To all, that all Achaia’s sons might hear,
Foremost and rearmost, and might weigh his words.340
He then his counsel, prudent, thus proposed.

Atrides! Monarch! The Achaians seek
To make thee ignominious above all
In sight of all mankind. None recollects
His promise more in steed-famed Argos pledged,345
Here to abide till Ilium wall’d to heaven
Should vanquish’d sink, and all her wealth be ours.
No—now, like widow’d women, or weak boys,
They whimper to each other, wishing home.
And home, I grant, to the afflicted soul350
Seems pleasant.[11] The poor seaman from his wife
One month detain’d, cheerless his ship and sad
Possesses, by the force of wintry blasts,
And by the billows of the troubled deep
Fast lock’d in port. But us the ninth long year355
Revolving, finds camp’d under Ilium still.
I therefore blame not, if they mourn beside
Their sable barks, the Grecians. Yet the shame
That must attend us after absence long
Returning unsuccessful, who can bear?360
Be patient, friends! wait only till we learn
If Calchas truly prophesied, or not;
For well we know, and I to all appeal,
Whom Fate hath not already snatch’d away,
(It seems but yesterday, or at the most365
A day or two before) that when the ships
Wo-fraught for Priam, and the race of Troy,
At Aulis met, and we beside the fount
With perfect hecatombs the Gods adored
Beneath the plane-tree, from whose root a stream370
Ran crystal-clear, there we beheld a sign
Wonderful in all eyes. A serpent huge,
Tremendous spectacle! with crimson spots
His back all dappled, by Olympian Jove
Himself protruded, from the altar’s foot375
Slipp’d into light, and glided to the tree.
There on the topmost bough, close-cover’d sat
With foliage broad, eight sparrows, younglings all,
Then newly feather’d, with their dam, the ninth.
The little ones lamenting shrill he gorged,380
While, wheeling o’er his head, with screams the dam
Bewail’d her darling brood. Her also next,
Hovering and clamoring, he by the wing
Within his spiry folds drew, and devoured.
All eaten thus, the nestlings and the dam,385
The God who sent him, signalized him too,
For him Saturnian Jove transform’d to stone.
We wondering stood, to see that strange portent
Intrude itself into our holy rites,
When Calchas, instant, thus the sign explain’d.390

Why stand ye, Greeks, astonish’d? Ye behold
A prodigy by Jove himself produced,
An omen, whose accomplishment indeed
Is distant, but whose fame shall never die.[12]
E’en as this serpent in your sight devour’d395
Eight youngling sparrows, with their dam, the ninth,
So we nine years must war on yonder plain,
And in the tenth, wide-bulwark’d Troy is ours.

So spake the seer, and as he spake, is done.
Wait, therefore, brave Achaians! go not hence400
Till Priam’s spacious city be your prize.

He ceased, and such a shout ensued, that all
The hollow ships the deafening roar return’d
Of acclamation, every voice the speech
Extolling of Ulysses, glorious Chief.405

Then Nestor the Gerenian,[13] warrior old,
Arising, spake; and, by the Gods, he said,
Ye more resemble children inexpert
In war, than disciplined and prudent men.
Where now are all your promises and vows,410
Councils, libations, right-hand covenants?[14]
Burn them, since all our occupation here
Is to debate and wrangle, whereof end
Or fruit though long we wait, shall none be found.
But, Sovereign, be not thou appall’d. Be firm.415
Relax not aught of thine accustomed sway,
But set the battle forth as thou art wont.
And if there be a Grecian, here and there,
One,[15] adverse to the general voice, let such
Wither alone. He shall not see his wish420
Gratified, neither will we hence return
To Argos, ere events shall yet have proved
Jove’s promise false or true. For when we climb’d
Our gallant barks full-charged with Ilium’s fate,
Saturnian Jove omnipotent, that day,425
(Omen propitious!) thunder’d on the right.
Let no man therefore pant for home, till each
Possess a Trojan spouse, and from her lips
Take sweet revenge for Helen’s pangs of heart.
Who then? What soldier languishes and sighs430
To leave us? Let him dare to lay his hand
On his own vessel, and he dies the first.
But hear, O King! I shall suggest a course
Not trivial. Agamemnon! sort the Greeks
By districts and by tribes, that tribe may tribe435
Support, and each his fellow. This performed,
And with consent of all, thou shalt discern
With ease what Chief, what private man deserts,
And who performs his part. The base, the brave,
Such disposition made, shall both appear;440
And thou shalt also know, if heaven or we,
The Gods, or our supineness, succor Troy.

To whom Atrides, King of men, replied.
Old Chief! Thou passest all Achaia’s sons
In consultation; would to Jove our Sire,445
To Athenæan Pallas, and Apollo!
That I had ten such coadjutors, wise
As thou art, and the royal city soon
Of Priam, with her wealth, should all be ours.[16]
But me the son of Saturn, Jove supreme450
Himself afflicts, who in contentious broils
Involves me, and in altercation vain.
Thence all that wordy tempest for a girl
Achilles and myself between, and I
The fierce aggressor. Be that breach but heal’d!455
And Troy’s reprieve thenceforth is at an end.
Go—take refreshment now that we may march
Forth to our enemies. Let each whet well
His spear, brace well his shield, well feed his brisk
High-mettled horses, well survey and search460
His chariot on all sides, that no defect
Disgrace his bright habiliments of war.
So will we give the day from morn to eve
To dreadful battle. Pause there shall be none
Till night divide us. Every buckler’s thong465
Shall sweat on the toil’d bosom, every hand
That shakes the spear shall ache, and every steed
Shall smoke that whirls the chariot o’er the plain.
Wo then to whom I shall discover here
Loitering among the tents; let him escape470
My vengeance if he can. The vulture’s maw
Shall have his carcase, and the dogs his bones.

He spake; whom all applauded with a shout
Loud as against some headland cliff the waves
Roll’d by the stormy South o’er rocks that shoot475
Afar into the deep, which in all winds
The flood still overspreads, blow whence they may.
Arising, forth they rush’d, among the ships
All scatter’d; smoke from every tent arose,
The host their food preparing; next, his God480
Each man invoked (of the Immortals him
Whom he preferr’d) with sacrifice and prayer
For safe escape from danger and from death.
But Agamemnon to Saturnian Jove
Omnipotent, an ox of the fifth year485
Full-flesh’d devoted, and the Princes call’d
Noblest of all the Grecians to his feast.
First, Nestor with Idomeneus the King,
Then either Ajax, and the son he call’d
Of Tydeus, with Ulysses sixth and last,490
Jove’s peer in wisdom. Menelaus went,
Heroic Chief! unbidden, for he knew
His brother’s mind with weight of care oppress’d.
The ox encircling, and their hands with meal
Of consecration fill’d, the assembly stood,495
When Agamemnon thus his prayer preferred.

Almighty Father! Glorious above all!
Cloud-girt, who dwell’st in heaven thy throne sublime,
Let not the sun go down, till Priam’s roof
Fall flat into the flames; till I shall burn500
His gates with fire; till I shall hew away
His hack’d and riven corslet from the breast
Of Hector, and till numerous Chiefs, his friends,
Around him, prone in dust, shall bite the ground.

So prayed he, but with none effect, The God505
Received his offering, but to double toil
Doom’d them, and sorrow more than all the past.

They then, the triturated barley grain
First duly sprinkling, the sharp steel infix’d
Deep in the victim’s neck reversed, then stripp’d510
The carcase, and divided at their joint
The thighs, which in the double caul involved
They spread with slices crude, and burn’d with fire
Ascending fierce from billets sere and dry.
The spitted entrails next they o’er the coals515
Suspended held. The thighs with fire consumed,
They gave to each his portion of the maw,
Then slash’d the remnant, pierced it with the spits,
And managing with culinary skill
The roast, withdrew it from the spits again.520
Thus, all their task accomplished, and the board
Set forth, they feasted, and were all sufficed.
When neither hunger more nor thirst remain’d
Unsatisfied, Gerenian Nestor spake.

Atrides! Agamemnon! King of men!525
No longer waste we time in useless words,
Nor to a distant hour postpone the work
To which heaven calls thee. Send thine heralds forth.
Who shall convene the Achaians at the fleet,
That we, the Chiefs assembled here, may range,530
Together, the imbattled multitude,
And edge their spirits for immediate fight.

He spake, nor Agamemnon not complied.
At once he bade his clear-voiced heralds call
The Greeks to battle. They the summons loud535
Gave forth, and at the sound the people throng’d.
Then Agamemnon and the Kings of Greece
Dispatchful drew them into order just,
With whom Minerva azure-eyed advanced,
The inestimable Ægis on her arm,540
Immortal, unobnoxious to decay
A hundred braids, close twisted, all of gold,
Each valued at a hundred beeves,[17] around
Dependent fringed it. She from side to side
Her eyes cerulean rolled, infusing thirst545
Of battle endless into every breast.
War won them now, war sweeter now to each
Than gales to waft them over ocean home.[18]
As when devouring flames some forest seize
On the high mountains, splendid from afar550
The blaze appears, so, moving on the plain,
The steel-clad host innumerous flash’d to heaven.
And as a multitude of fowls in flocks
Assembled various, geese, or cranes, or swans
Lithe-neck’d, long hovering o’er Caÿster’s banks555
On wanton plumes, successive on the mead
Alight at last, and with a clang so loud
That all the hollow vale of Asius rings;
In number such from ships and tents effused,
They cover’d the Scamandrian plain; the earth560
Rebellow’d to the feet of steeds and men.
They overspread Scamander’s grassy vale,
Myriads, as leaves, or as the flowers of spring.
As in the hovel where the peasant milks
His kine in spring-time, when his pails are fill’d,565
Thick clouds of humming insects on the wing
Swarm all around him, so the Grecians swarm’d
An unsumm’d multitude o’er all the plain,
Bright arm’d, high crested, and athirst for war.
As goat-herds separate their numerous flocks570
With ease, though fed promiscuous, with like ease
Their leaders them on every side reduced
To martial order glorious;[19] among whom
Stood Agamemnon “with an eye like Jove’s,
To threaten or command,” like Mars in girth,575
And with the port of Neptune. As the bull
Conspicuous among all the herd appears,
For he surpasses all, such Jove ordain’d
That day the son of Atreus, in the midst
Of Heroes, eminent above them all.580

Tell me, (for ye are are heavenly, and beheld[20]
A scene, whereof the faint report alone
Hath reached our ears, remote and ill-informed,)
Tell me, ye Muses, under whom, beneath
What Chiefs of royal or of humbler note585
Stood forth the embattled Greeks? The host at large;
They were a multitude in number more
Than with ten tongues, and with ten mouths, each mouth
Made vocal with a trumpet’s throat of brass
I might declare, unless the Olympian nine,590
Jove’s daughters, would the chronicle themselves
Indite, of all assembled, under Troy.
I will rehearse the Captains and their fleets.

[21]Bœotia’s sturdy sons Peneleus led,
And Leïtus, whose partners in command595
Arcesilaus and Prothoenor came,
And Clonius. Them the dwellers on the rocks
Of Aulis followed, with the hardy clans
Of Hyrie, Schoenos, Scholos, and the hills
Of Eteon; Thespia, Græa, and the plains600
Of Mycalessus them, and Harma served,
Eleon, Erythræ, Peteon; Hyle them,
Hesius and Ocalea, and the strength
Of Medeon; Copæ also in their train
Marched, with Eutresis and the mighty men605
Of Thisbe famed for doves; nor pass unnamed
Whom Coronæa, and the grassy land
Of Haliartus added to the war,
Nor whom Platæa, nor whom Glissa bred,
And Hypothebæ,[22] and thy sacred groves610
To Neptune, dark Onchestus. Arne claims
A record next for her illustrious sons,
Vine-bearing Arne. Thou wast also there
Mideia, and thou Nissa; nor be thine
Though last, Anthedon, a forgotten name.615
These in Bœotia’s fair and gallant fleet
Of fifty ships, each bearing o’er the waves
Thrice forty warriors, had arrived at Troy.

In thirty ships deep-laden with the brave,
Aspledon and Orchomenos had sent620
Their chosen youth; them ruled a noble pair,
Sons of Astyoche; she, lovely nymph,
Received by stealth, on Actor’s stately roof,
The embraces of a God, and bore to Mars
Twins like himself, Ascalaphus the bold,625
And bold Iälmenus, expert in arms.

Beneath Epistrophus and Schedius, took
Their destined station on Bœotia’s left,
The brave Phocensians; they in forty ships
From Cyparissus came, and from the rocks630
Of Python, and from Crissa the divine;
From Anemoria, Daulis, Panopeus,
And from Hyampolis, and from the banks
Of the Cephissus, sacred stream, and from
Lilæa, seated at its fountain-head.635

Next from beyond Eubœa’s happy isle
In forty ships conveyed, stood forth well armed
The Locrians; dwellers in Augeia some
The pleasant, some of Opoëis possessed,
Some of Calliarus; these Scarpha sent,640
And Cynus those; from Bessa came the rest,
From Tarpha, Thronius, and from the brink
Of loud Boagrius; Ajax them, the swift,
Son of Oïleus led, not such as he
From Telamon, big-boned and lofty built,645
But small of limb, and of an humbler crest;
Yet he, competitor had none throughout
The Grecians of what land soe’er, for skill
In ushering to its mark the rapid lance.

Elphenor brought (Calchodon’s mighty son)650
The Eubœans to the field. In forty ships
From Histrïæa for her vintage famed,
From Chalcis, from Iretria, from the gates
Of maritime Cerinthus, from the heights
Of Dios rock-built citadel sublime,655
And from Caristus and from Styra came
His warlike multitudes, all named alike
Abantes, on whose shoulders fell behind
Their locks profuse,[23] and they were eager all
To split the hauberk with the pointed spear.660

Nor Athens had withheld her generous sons,
The people of Erectheus. Him of old
The teeming glebe produced, a wondrous birth!
And Pallas rear’d him: her own unctuous fane
She made his habitation, where with bulls665
The youth of Athens, and with slaughter’d lambs
Her annual worship celebrate. Then led
Menestheus, whom, (sage Nestor’s self except,
Thrice school’d in all events of human life,)
None rivall’d ever in the just array670
Of horse and man to battle. Fifty ships
Black-prowed, had borne them to the distant war.

Ajax from Salamis twelve vessels brought,
And where the Athenian band in phalanx stood
Marshall’d compact, there station’d he his powers.675

The men of Argos and Tyrintha next,
And of Hermione, that stands retired
With Asine, within her spacious bay;
Of Epidaurus, crown’d with purple vines,
And of Trœzena, with the Achaian youth680
Of sea-begirt Ægina, and with thine,
Maseta, and the dwellers on thy coast,
Wave-worn Eïonæ; these all obeyed
The dauntless Hero Diomede, whom served
Sthenelus, son of Capaneus, a Chief685
Of deathless fame, his second in command,
And godlike man, Euryalus, the son
Of King Mecisteus, Talaüs’ son, his third.
But Diomede controll’d them all, and him
Twice forty sable ships their leader own’d.690

Came Agamemnon with a hundred ships,
Exulting in his powers; more numerous they,
And more illustrious far than other Chief
Could boast, whoever. Clad in burnish’d brass,
And conscious of pre-eminence, he stood.695
He drew his host from cities far renown’d,
Mycenæ, and Corinthus, seat of wealth,
Orneia, and Cleonæ bulwark’d strong,
And lovely Aræthyria; Sicyon, where
His seat of royal power held at the first700
Adrastus: Hyperesia, and the heights
Of Gonoëssa; Ægium, with the towns
That sprinkle all that far-extended coast,
Pellene also and wide Helice
With all their shores, were number’d in his train.705

From hollow Lacedæmon’s glen profound,
From Phare, Sparta, and from Messa, still
Resounding with the ring-dove’s amorous moan,
From Brysia, from Augeia, from the rocks
Of Laas, from Amycla, Otilus,710
And from the towers of Helos, at whose foot
The surf of Ocean falls, came sixty barks
With Menelaus. From the monarch’s host
The royal brother ranged his own apart,
and panted for revenge of Helen’s wrongs,715
And of her sighs and tears.[24] From rank to rank,
Conscious of dauntless might he pass’d, and sent
Into all hearts the fervor of his own.

Gerenian Nestor in thrice thirty ships
Had brought his warriors; they from Pylus came,720
From blithe Arene, and from Thryos, built
Fast by the fords of Alpheus, and from steep
And stately Æpy. Their confederate powers
Sent Amphigenia, Cyparissa veiled
With broad redundance of funereal shades,725
Pteleos and Helos, and of deathless fame
Dorion. In Dorion erst the Muses met
Threïcian Thamyris, on his return
From Eurytus, Oechalian Chief, and hush’d
His song for ever; for he dared to vaunt730
That he would pass in song even themselves
The Muses, daughters of Jove Ægis-arm’d.
They therefore, by his boast incensed, the bard
Struck blind, and from his memory dash’d severe
All traces of his once celestial strains.735

Arcadia’s sons, the dwellers at the foot
Of mount Cyllene, where Æpytus sleeps
Intomb’d; a generation bold in fight,
And warriors hand to hand; the valiant men
Of Pheneus, of Orchomenos by flocks740
Grazed numberless, of Ripe, Stratia, bleak
Enispe; Mantinea city fair,
Stymphelus and Parrhasia, and the youth
Of Tegea; royal Agapenor these,
Ancæus’ offspring, had in sixty ships745
To Troy conducted; numerous was the crew,
And skilled in arms, which every vessel brought,
And Agamemnon had with barks himself
Supplied them, for, of inland realms possessed,
They little heeded maritime employs.[25]750

The dwellers in Buprasium, on the shores
Of pleasant Elis, and in all the land
Myrsinus and the Hyrminian plain between,
The rock Olenian, and the Alysian fount;
These all obey’d four Chiefs, and galleys ten755
Each Chief commanded, with Epeans filled.
Amphimachus and Thalpius govern’d these,
This, son of Cteatus, the other, sprung
From Eurytus, and both of Actor’s house.
Diores, son of Amarynceus, those760
Led on, and, for his godlike form renown’d,
Polyxenus was Chieftain o’er the rest,
Son of Agasthenes, Augeias’ son.

Dulichium, and her sister sacred isles
The Echinades, whose opposite aspect765
Looks toward Elis o’er the curling waves,
Sent forth their powers with Meges at their head,
Brave son of Phyleus, warrior dear to Jove.
Phyleus in wrath, his father’s house renounced,
And to Dulichium wandering, there abode.770
Twice twenty ships had follow’d Meges forth.

Ulysses led the Cephallenians bold.
From Ithaca, and from the lofty woods
Of Neritus they came, and from the rocks
Of rude Ægilipa. Crocylia these,775
And these Zacynthus own’d; nor yet a few
From Samos, from Epirus join’d their aid,
And from the opposite Ionian shore.
Them, wise as Jove himself, Ulysses led
In twelve fair ships, with crimson prows adorn’d.780

From forty ships, Thoas, Andræmon’s son,
Had landed his Ætolians; for extinct
Was Meleager, and extinct the house
Of Oeneus all, nor Oeneus self survived;
To Thoas therefore had Ætolia fallen;785
Him Olenos, Pylene, Chalcis served,
With Pleuro, and the rock-bound Calydon.

Idomeneus, spear-practised warrior, led
The numerous Cretans. In twice forty ships
He brought his powers to Troy. The warlike bands790
Of Cnossus, of Gortyna wall’d around,
Of Lyctus, of Lycastus chalky-white,
Of Phæstus, of Miletus, with the youth
Of Rhytius him obey’d; nor these were all,
But others from her hundred cities Crete795
Sent forth, all whom Idomeneus the brave
Commanded, with Meriones in arms
Dread as the God of battles blood-imbrued.

Nine ships Tlepolemus, Herculean-born,
For courage famed and for superior size,800
Fill’d with his haughty Rhodians. They, in tribes
Divided, dwelt distinct. Jelyssus these,
Those Lindus, and the rest the shining soil
Of white Camirus occupied. Him bore
To Hercules, (what time he led the nymph805
From Ephyre, and from Sellea’s banks,
After full many a city laid in dust.)
Astyocheia. In his father’s house
Magnificent, Tlepolemus spear-famed
Had scarce up-grown to manhood’s lusty prime810
When he his father’s hoary uncle slew
Lycimnius, branch of Mars. Then built he ships,
And, pushing forth to sea, fled from the threats
Of the whole house of Hercules. Huge toil
And many woes he suffer’d, till at length815
At Rhodes arriving, in three separate bands
He spread himself abroad, Much was he loved
Of all-commanding Jove, who bless’d him there,
And shower’d abundant riches on them all.

Nireus of Syma, with three vessels came;820
Nireus, Aglæa’s offspring, whom she bore
To Charopus the King; Nireus in form,
(The faultless son of Peleus sole except,)
Loveliest of all the Grecians call’d to Troy.
But he was heartless and his men were few.[26]825

Nisyrus, Casus, Crapathus, and Cos
Where reign’d Eurypylus, with all the isles
Calydnæ named, under two valiant Chiefs
Their troops disposed; Phidippus one, and one,
His brother Antiphus, begotten both830
By Thessalus, whom Hercules begat.
In thirty ships they sought the shores of Troy.

The warriors of Pelasgian Argos next,
Of Alus, and Alope, and who held
Trechina, Phthia, and for women fair835
Distinguish’d, Hellas; known by various names
Hellenes, Myrmidons, Achæans, them
In fifty ships embark’d, Achilles ruled.
But these were deaf to the hoarse-throated war,
For there was none to draw their battle forth,840
And give them just array. Close in his ships
Achilles, after loss of the bright-hair’d
Brisëis, lay, resentful; her obtained
Not without labor hard, and after sack
Of Thebes and of Lyrnessus, where he slew845
Two mighty Chiefs, sons of Evenus both,
Epistrophus and Mynes, her he mourn’d,
And for her sake self-prison’d in his fleet
And idle lay, though soon to rise again.

From Phylace, and from the flowery fields850
Of Pyrrhasus, a land to Ceres given
By consecration, and from Iton green,
Mother of flocks; from Antron by the sea,
And from the grassy meads of Pteleus, came
A people, whom while yet he lived, the brave855
Protesilaüs led; but him the earth
Now cover’d dark and drear. A wife he left,
To rend in Phylace her bleeding cheeks,
And an unfinish’d mansion. First he died
Of all the Greeks; for as he leap’d to land860
Foremost by far, a Dardan struck him dead.
Nor had his troops, though filled with deep regret,
No leader; them Podarces led, a Chief
Like Mars in battle, brother of the slain,
But younger born, and from Iphiclus sprung865
Who sprang from Phylacus the rich in flocks.
But him Protesilaüs, as in years,
So also in desert of arms excell’d
Heroic, whom his host, although they saw
Podarces at their head, still justly mourn’d;870
For he was fierce in battle, and at Troy
With forty sable-sided ships arrived.

Eleven galleys, Pheræ on the lake,
And Boebe, and Iölchus, and the vale
Of Glaphyræ supplied with crews robust875
Under Eumelus; him Alcestis, praised
For beauty above all her sisters fair,
In Thessaly to King Admetus bore.

Methone, and Olizon’s craggy coast,
With Melibœa and Thaumasia sent880
Seven ships; their rowers were good archers all,
And every vessel dipped into the wave
Her fifty oars. Them Philoctetes, skill’d
To draw with sinewy arm the stubborn bow,
Commanded; but he suffering anguish keen885
Inflicted by a serpent’s venom’d tooth,
Lay sick in Lemnos; him the Grecians there
Had left sore-wounded, but were destined soon
To call to dear remembrance whom they left.
Meantime, though sorrowing for his sake, his troops890
Yet wanted not a chief; them Medon ruled,
Whom Rhena to the far-famed conqueror bore
Oïleus, fruit of their unsanction’d loves.

From Tricca, from Ithome rough and rude
With rocks and glens, and from Oechalia, town895
Of Eurytus Oechalian-born, came forth
Their warlike youth by Podalirius led
And by Machaon, healers both expert
Of all disease, and thirty ships were theirs.

The men of Ormenus, and from beside900
The fountain Hypereia, from the tops
Of chalky Titan, and Asteria’s band;
Them ruled Eurypylus, Evæmon’s son
Illustrious, whom twice twenty ships obeyed.

Orthe, Gyrtone, Oloösson white,905
Argissa and Helone; they their youth
Gave to control of Polypœtes, son
Undaunted of Pirithoüs, son of Jove.
Him, to Pirithoüs, (on the self-same day
When he the Centaurs punish’d and pursued910
Sheer to Æthicæ driven from Pelion’s heights
The shaggy race) Hippodamia bore.
Nor he alone them led. With him was join’d
Leonteus dauntless warrior, from the bold
Coronus sprung, who Cæneus call’d his sire.915
Twice twenty ships awaited their command.

Guneus from Cyphus twenty and two ships
Led forth; the Enienes him obey’d,
And the robust Perœbi, warriors bold,
And dwellers on Dodona’s wintry brow.920
To these were join’d who till the pleasant fields
Where Titaresius winds; the gentle flood
Pours into Peneus all his limpid stores,
But with the silver-eddied Peneus flows
Unmixt as oil;[27] for Stygian is his stream,925
And Styx is the inviolable oath.

Last with his forty ships, Tenthredon’s son,
The active Prothoüs came. From the green banks
Of Peneus his Magnesians far and near
He gather’d, and from Pelion forest-crown’d.930

These were the princes and the Chiefs of Greece.
Say, Muse, who most in personal desert
Excell’d, and whose were the most warlike steeds
And of the noblest strain. Their hue, their age,
Their height the same, swift as the winds of heaven935
And passing far all others, were the mares
Which drew Eumelus; on Pierian hills
The heavenly Archer of the silver bow,
Apollo, bred them. But of men, the chief
Was Telamonian Ajax, while wrath-bound940
Achilles lay; for he was worthier far,
And more illustrious were the steeds which bore
The noble son of Peleus; but revenge
On Agamemnon leader of the host
Was all his thought, while in his gallant ships945
Sharp-keel’d to cut the foaming flood, he lay.
Meantime, along the margin of the deep
His soldiers hurled the disk, or bent the bow.
Or to its mark dispatch’d the quivering lance.
Beside the chariots stood the unharness’d steeds950
Cropping the lotus, or at leisure browsed
On celery wild, from watery freshes gleaned.
Beneath the shadow of the sheltering tent
The chariot stood, while they, the charioteers
Roam’d here and there the camp, their warlike lord955
Regretting sad, and idle for his sake.

As if a fire had burnt along the ground,
Such seem’d their march; earth groan’d their steps beneath;
As when in Arimi, where fame reports
Typhoëus stretch’d, the fires of angry Jove960
Down darted, lash the ground, so groan’d the earth
Beneath them, for they traversed swift the plain.

And now from Jove, with heavy tidings charged,
Wind-footed Iris to the Trojans came.
It was the time of council, when the throng965
At Priam’s gate assembled, young and old:
Them, standing nigh, the messenger of heaven
Accosted with the voice of Priam’s son,
Polites. He, confiding in his speed
For sure deliverance, posted was abroad970
On Æsyeta’s tomb,[28] intent to watch
When the Achaian host should leave the fleet.
The Goddess in his form thus them address’d.

Oh, ancient Monarch! Ever, evermore
Speaking, debating, as if all were peace;975
I have seen many a bright-embattled field,
But never one so throng’d as this to-day.
For like the leaves, or like the sands they come
Swept by the winds, to gird the city round.

But Hector! chiefly thee I shall exhort.980
In Priam’s spacious city are allies
Collected numerous, and of nations wide
Disseminated various are the tongues.
Let every Chief his proper troop command,
And marshal his own citizens to war.985

She ceased; her Hector heard intelligent,
And quick dissolved the council. All took arms.
Wide flew the gates; forth rush’d the multitude,
Horsemen and foot, and boisterous stir arose.
In front of Ilium, distant on the plain,990
Clear all around from all obstruction, stands
An eminence high-raised, by mortal men
Call’d Bateia, but the Gods the tomb
Have named it of Myrinna swift in fight.
Troy and her aids there set the battle forth.995

Huge Priameian Hector, fierce in arms,
Led on the Trojans; with whom march’d the most
And the most valiant, dexterous at the spear.

Æneas, (on the hills of Ida him
The lovely Venus to Anchises bore,1000
A Goddess by a mortal man embraced)
Led the Dardanians; but not he alone;
Archilochus with him and Acamas
Stood forth, the offspring of Antenor, each,
And well instructed in all forms of war.1005

Fast by the foot of Ida, where they drank
The limpid waters of Æsepus, dwelt
The Trojans of Zeleia. Rich were they
And led by Pandarus, Lycaon’s son,
Whom Phœbus self graced with the bow he bore.1010

Apæsus, Adrastea, Terie steep,
And Pitueia—them, Amphius clad
In mail thick-woven, and Adrastus, ruled.
They were the sons of the Percosian seer
Merops, expert in the soothsayers’ art1015
Above all other; he his sons forbad
The bloody fight, but disobedient they
Still sought it, for their destiny prevailed.

The warriors of Percote, and who dwelt
In Practius, in Arisba, city fair,1020
In Sestus, in Abydus, march’d behind
Princely Hyrtacides; his tawny steeds,
Strong-built and tall, from Sellcentes’ bank
And from Arisba, had him borne to Troy.

Hippothous and Pilmus, branch of Mars,1025
Both sons of Lethus the Pelasgian, they,
Forth from Larissa for her fertile soil
Far-famed, the spear-expert Pelasgians brought.

The Thracians (all whom Hellespont includes
Within the banks of his swift-racing tide)1030
Heroic Acamas and Pirous led.
Euphemus, offspring of Trœzenus, son
Of Jove-protected Ceas, was the Chief
Whom the spear-arm’d Ciconian band obey’d.

Pæonia’s archers follow’d to the field1035
Pyræchmes; they from Amydon remote
Were drawn, where Axius winds; broad Axius, stream
Diffused delightful over all the vale.

Pylæmenes, a Chief of giant might
From the Eneti for forest-mules renowned1040
March’d with his Paphlagonians; dwellers they
In Sesamus and in Cytorus were,
And by the stream Parthenius; Cromna these
Sent forth, and those Ægialus on the lip
And margin of the land, and some, the heights1045
Of Erythini, rugged and abrupt.

Epistrophus and Odius from the land
Of Alybe, a region far remote,
Where veins of silver wind, led to the field
The Halizonians. With the Mysians came1050
Chromis their Chief, and Ennomus; him skill’d
In augury, but skill’d in vain, his art
Saved not, but by Æacides[29] the swift,
With others in the Xanthus[30] slain, he died.
Ascanius, lovely youth, and Phorcis, led1055
The Phrygians from Ascania far remote,
Ardent for battle. The Mœonian race,
(All those who at the foot of Tmolus dwelt,)
Mesthles and Antiphus, fraternal pair,
Sons of Pylæmenes commanded, both1060
Of the Gygæan lake in Lydia born.

Amphimachus and Nastes led to fight
The Carians, people of a barbarous speech,[31]
With the Milesians, and the mountain-race
Of wood-crown’d Phthira, and who dwelt beside1065
Mæander, or on Mycale sublime.
Them led Amphimachus and Nastes, sons
Renown’d of Nomion. Like a simple girl
Came forth Amphimachus with gold bedight,
But him his trappings from a woful death1070
Saved not, when whirled beneath the bloody tide
To Peleus’ stormy son his spoils he left.

Sarpedon with the noble Glaucus led
Their warriors forth from farthest Lycia, where
Xanthus deep-dimpled rolls his oozy tide.1075

BOOK III.

ARGUMENT OF THE THIRD BOOK.

The armies meet. Paris throws out a challenge to the Grecian Princes. Menelaus accepts it. The terms of the combat are adjusted solemnly by Agamemnon on the part of Greece, and by Priam on the part of Troy. The combat ensues, in which Paris is vanquished, whom yet Venus rescues. Agamemnon demands from the Trojans a performance of the covenant.

BOOK III.

[1]Now marshall’d all beneath their several chiefs,
With deafening shouts, and with the clang of arms,
The host of Troy advanced. Such clang is heard
Along the skies, when from incessant showers
Escaping, and from winter’s cold, the cranes5
Take wing, and over Ocean speed away;[2]
Wo to the land of dwarfs! prepared they fly
For slaughter of the small Pygmæan race.
Not so the Greeks; they breathing valor came,
But silent all, and all with faithful hearts10
On succor mutual to the last, resolved.
As when the south wind wraps the mountain top
In mist the shepherd’s dread, but to the thief
Than night itself more welcome, and the eye
Is bounded in its ken to a stone’s cast,15
Such from beneath their footsteps dun and dense
Uprose the dust, for swift they cross the plain.

When, host to host opposed, full nigh they stood,
Then Alexander[3] in the Trojan van
Advanced was seen, all beauteous as a God;20
His leopard’s skin, his falchion and his bow
Hung from his shoulder; bright with heads of brass
He shook two spears, and challenged to the fight
The bravest Argives there, defying all.
Him, striding haughtily his host before25
When Menelaus saw, such joy he felt
As hunger-pinch’d the lion feels, by chance
Conducted to some carcase huge, wild goat,
Or antler’d stag; huntsmen and baying hounds
Disturb not him, he gorges in their sight.30
So Menelaus at the view rejoiced
Of lovely Alexander, for he hoped
His punishment at hand. At once, all armed,
Down from his chariot to the ground he leap’d

When godlike Paris him in front beheld35
Conspicuous, his heart smote him, and his fate
Avoiding, far within the lines he shrank.[4]
As one, who in some woodland height descrying
A serpent huge, with sudden start recoils,
His limbs shake under him; with cautious step40
He slow retires; fear blanches cold his cheeks;
So beauteous Alexander at the sight
Of Atreus’ son dishearten’d sore, the ranks
Of haughty Trojans enter’d deep again:
Him Hector eyed, and thus rebuked severe.45

Curst Paris! Fair deceiver! Woman-mad!
I would to all in heaven that thou hadst died
Unborn, at least unmated! happier far
Than here to have incurr’d this public shame!
Well may the Grecians taunt, and laughing loud,50
Applaud the champion, slow indeed to fight
And pusillanimous, but wondrous fair.
Wast thou as timid, tell me, when with those
Thy loved companions in that famed exploit,
Thou didst consort with strangers, and convey55
From distant lands a warrior’s beauteous bride
To be thy father’s and his people’s curse,
Joy to our foes, but to thyself reproach?
Behold her husband! Darest thou not to face
The warlike prince? Now learn how brave a Chief60
Thou hast defrauded of his blooming spouse.
Thy lyre, thy locks, thy person, specious gifts
Of partial Venus, will avail thee nought,
Once mixt by Menelaus with the dust.
But we are base ourselves, or long ago,65
For all thy numerous mischiefs, thou hadst slept
Secure beneath a coverlet[5] of stone.[6]

Then godlike Alexander thus replied.
Oh Hector, true in temper as the axe
Which in the shipwright’s hand the naval plank70
Divides resistless, doubling all his force,
Such is thy dauntless spirit whose reproach
Perforce I own, nor causeless nor unjust.
Yet let the gracious gifts uncensured pass
Of golden Venus; man may not reject75
The glorious bounty by the Gods bestow’d,
Nor follows their beneficence our choice.
But if thy pleasure be that I engage
With Menelaus in decision fierce
Of desperate combat bid the host of Troy80
And bid the Grecians sit; then face to face
Commit us, in the vacant field between,
To fight for Helen and for all her wealth.
Who strongest proves, and conquers, he, of her
And hers possess’d shall bear them safe away;85
While ye (peace sworn and firm accord) shall dwell
At Troy, and these to Argos shall return
And to Achaia praised for women fair.

He ceased, whom Hector heard with joy; he moved
Into the middle space, and with his spear90
Advanced athwart push’d back the Trojan van,
And all stood fast. Meantime at him the Greeks
Discharged full volley, showering thick around
From bow and sling;[7] when with a mighty voice
Thus Agamemnon, leader of the host.95

Argives! Be still—shoot not, ye sons of Greece!
Hector bespeaks attention. Hear the Chief!

He said, at once the Grecians ceased to shoot,
And all sat silent. Hector then began.

Hear me, ye Trojans, and ye Greeks mail-arm’d,100
While I shall publish in your ears the words
Of Alexander, author of our strife.
Trojans, he bids, and Grecians on the field
Their arms dispose; while he, the hosts between,
With warlike Menelaus shall in fight105
Contend for Helen, and for all her wealth.
Who strongest proves, and conquers, he, of her
And hers possess’d, shall bear them safe away,
And oaths of amity shall bind the rest.

He ceased, and all deep silence held, amazed;110
When valiant Menelaus thus began.

Hear now me also, on whose aching heart
These woes have heaviest fallen. At last I hope
Decision near, Trojans and Greeks between,
For ye have suffer’d in my quarrel much,115
And much by Paris, author of the war.
Die he who must, and peace be to the rest.
But ye shall hither bring two lambs, one white,
The other black;[8] this to the Earth devote,
That to the Sun. We shall ourselves supply120
A third for Jove. Then bring ye Priam forth,
Himself to swear the covenant, (for his sons
Are faithless) lest the oath of Jove be scorn’d.
Young men are ever of unstable mind;
But when an elder interferes, he views125
Future and past together, and insures
The compact, to both parties, uninfringed.

So Menelaus spake; and in all hearts
Awaken’d joyful hope that there should end
War’s long calamities. Alighted each,130
And drew his steeds into the lines. The field
Glitter’d with arms put off, and side by side,
Ranged orderly, while the interrupted war
Stood front to front, small interval between.

Then Hector to the city sent in haste135
Two heralds for the lambs, and to invite
Priam; while Agamemnon, royal Chief,
Talthybius to the Grecian fleet dismiss’d
For a third lamb to Jove; nor he the voice
Of noble Agamemnon disobey’d.140

Iris, ambassadress of heaven, the while,
To Helen came. Laödice she seem’d,
Loveliest of all the daughters of the house
Of Priam, wedded to Antenor’s son,
King Helicäon. Her she found within,145
An ample web magnificent she wove,[9]
Inwrought with numerous conflicts for her sake
Beneath the hands of Mars endured by Greeks
Mail-arm’d, and Trojans of equestrian fame.
Swift Iris, at her side, her thus address’d.150

Haste, dearest nymph! a wondrous sight behold!
Greeks brazen-mail’d, and Trojans steed-renown’d.
So lately on the cruel work of Mars
Intent and hot for mutual havoc, sit
Silent; the war hath paused, and on his shield155
Each leans, his long spear planted at his side.
Paris and Menelaus, warrior bold,
With quivering lances shall contend for thee,
And thou art his who conquers; his for ever.

So saying, the Goddess into Helen’s soul160
Sweetest desire infused to see again
Her former Lord, her parents, and her home.
At once o’ermantled with her snowy veil
She started forth, and as she went let fall
A tender tear; not unaccompanied165
She went, but by two maidens of her train
Attended, Æthra, Pittheus’ daughter fair,
And soft-eyed Clymene. Their hasty steps
Convey’d them quickly to the Scæan gate.
There Priam, Panthous, Clytius, Lampus sat,170
Thymoetes, Hicetaon, branch of Mars,
Antenor and Ucalegon the wise,
All, elders of the people; warriors erst,
But idle now through age, yet of a voice
Still indefatigable as the fly’s[10]175
Which perch’d among the boughs sends forth at noon
Through all the grove his slender ditty sweet.
Such sat those Trojan leaders on the tower,
Who, soon as Helen on the steps they saw,
In accents quick, but whisper’d, thus remark’d.180

Trojans and Grecians wage, with fair excuse,
Long war for so much beauty.[11] Oh, how like
In feature to the Goddesses above!
Pernicious loveliness! Ah, hence away,
Resistless as thou art and all divine,185
Nor leave a curse to us, and to our sons.

So they among themselves; but Priam call’d
Fair Helen to his side.[12] My daughter dear!
Come, sit beside me. Thou shalt hence discern
Thy former Lord, thy kindred and thy friends.190
I charge no blame on thee. The Gods have caused,
Not thou, this lamentable war to Troy.[13]
Name to me yon Achaian Chief for bulk
Conspicuous, and for port. Taller indeed
I may perceive than he; but with these eyes195
Saw never yet such dignity, and grace.
Declare his name. Some royal Chief he seems.

To whom thus Helen, loveliest of her sex,
My other Sire! by me for ever held
In reverence, and with filial fear beloved!200
Oh that some cruel death had been my choice,
Rather than to abandon, as I did,
All joys domestic, matrimonial bliss,
Brethren, dear daughter, and companions dear,
A wanderer with thy son. Yet I alas!205
Died not, and therefore now, live but to weep.
But I resolve thee. Thou behold’st the son
Of Atreus, Agamemnon, mighty king,
In arms heroic, gracious in the throne,
And, (though it shame me now to call him such,)210
By nuptial ties a brother once to me.

Then him the ancient King-admiring, said.
Oh blest Atrides, happy was thy birth,
And thy lot glorious, whom this gallant host
So numerous, of the sons of Greece obey!215
To vine-famed Phrygia, in my days of youth,
I journey’d; many Phrygians there I saw,
Brave horsemen, and expert; they were the powers
Of Otreus and of Mygdon, godlike Chief,
And on the banks of Sangar’s stream encamp’d.220
I march’d among them, chosen in that war
Ally of Phrygia, and it was her day
Of conflict with the man-defying race,
The Amazons; yet multitudes like these
Thy bright-eyed Greeks, I saw not even there.225

The venerable King observing next
Ulysses, thus inquired. My child, declare
Him also. Shorter by the head he seems
Than Agamemnon, Atreus’ mighty son,
But shoulder’d broader, and of ampler chest;230
He hath disposed his armor on the plain,
But like a ram, himself the warrior ranks
Ranges majestic; like a ram full-fleeced
By numerous sheep encompass’d snowy-white.

To whom Jove’s daughter Helen thus replied.235
In him the son of old Laërtes know,
Ulysses; born in Ithaca the rude,
But of a piercing wit, and deeply wise.

Then answer thus, Antenor sage return’d.
Princess thou hast described him: hither once240
The noble Ithacan, on thy behalf
Ambassador with Menelaus, came:
Beneath my roof, with hospitable fare
Friendly I entertained them. Seeing then
Occasion opportune, I closely mark’d245
The genius and the talents of the Chiefs,
And this I noted well; that when they stood
Amid the assembled counsellors of Troy,
Then Menelaus his advantage show’d,
Who by the shoulders overtopp’d his friend.250
But when both sat, Ulysses in his air
Had more of state and dignity than he.
In the delivery of a speech address’d
To the full senate, Menelaus used
Few words, but to the matter, fitly ranged,255
And with much sweetness utter’d; for in loose
And idle play of ostentatious terms
He dealt not, thhugh he were the younger man.
But when the wise Ulysses from his seat
Had once arisen, he would his downcast eyes260
So rivet on the earth, and with a hand
That seem’d untutor’d in its use, so hold
His sceptre, swaying it to neither side,
That hadst thou seen him, thou hadst thought him, sure,
Some chafed and angry idiot, passion-fixt.265
Yet, when at length, the clear and mellow base
Of his deep voice brake forth, and he let fall
His chosen words like flakes of feather’d snow,
None then might match Ulysses; leisure, then,
Found none to wonder at his noble form.270

The third of whom the venerable king
Inquired, was Ajax.—Yon Achaian tall,
Whose head and shoulders tower above the rest,
And of such bulk prodigious—who is he?

Him answer’d Helen, loveliest of her sex.275
A bulwark of the Greeks. In him thou seest
Gigantic Ajax. Opposite appear
The Cretans, and among the Chiefs of Crete
stands, like a God, Idomeneus. Him oft
From Crete arrived, was Menelaüs wont280
To entertain; and others now I see,
Achaians, whom I could recall to mind,
And give to each his name; but two brave youths
I yet discern not; for equestrian skill
One famed, and one a boxer never foiled;285
My brothers; born of Leda; sons of Jove;
Castor and Pollux. Either they abide
In lovely Sparta still, or if they came,
Decline the fight, by my disgrace abash’d
And the reproaches which have fallen on me.[14]290