The Iliads of Homer. Homer

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СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">       Of his bad quarrel, laid by him in dust, and eating earth."

       He pray'd; Jove heard him not, but made more plentiful the birth

       Of his sad toils, yet took his gifts. Pray'rs past, cakes on they

       threw;

       The ox then, to the altar drawn, they kill'd, and from him drew

       His hide, then cut him up, his thighs; in two hewn, dubb'd with

       fat,

       Prick'd on the sweetbreads, and with wood, leaveless, and kindled

       at

       Apposéd fire, they burn the thighs; which done, the inwards, slit,

       They broil'd on coals and eat; the rest, in giggots cut, they spit,

       Roast cunningly, draw, sit, and feast; nought lack'd to leave

       allay'd

       Each temp'rate appetite; which serv'd, Nestor began and said:

       "Atrides, most grac'd king of men, now no more words allow,

       Nor more defer the deed Jove vows. Let heralds summon now

       The brazen-coated Greeks, and us range ev'rywhere the host,

       To stir a strong war quickly up." This speech no syllable lost;

       The high-voic'd heralds instantly he, charg'd to call to arms

       The curl'd-head Greeks; they call'd; the Greeks straight answer'd

       their alarms.

       The Jove-kept kings, about the king all gather'd, with their aid

       Rang'd all in tribes and nations. With them the gray-eyed Maid

       Great Ægis (Jove's bright shield) sustain'd, that can be never old,

       Never corrupted, fring'd about with serpents forg'd of gold,

       As many all suffic'd to make an hundred fringes, worth

       An hundred oxen, ev'ry snake all sprawling, all set forth

       With wondrous spirit. Through the host with this the Goddess ran,

       In fury casting round her eyes, and furnish'd ev'ry man

       With strength, exciting all to arms, and fight incessant. None

       Now lik'd their lov'd homes like the wars. And as a fire upon

       A huge wood, on the heights of hills, that far off hurls his light;

       So the divine brass shin'd on these thus thrusting on for fight,

       Their splendour through the air reach'd heav'n. And as about the

       flood

       Caïster, in an Asian mead, flocks of the airy brood,

       Cranes, geese, or long-neck'd swans, here, there, proud of their

       pinions fly,

       And in their falls layout such throats, that with their spiritful

       cry

       The meadow shrieks again; so here, these many-nation'd men

       Flow'd over the Scamandrian field, from tents and ships; the din

       Was dreadful that the feet of men and horse beat out of earth.

       And in the flourishing mead they stood, thick as the odorous birth

       Of flow'rs, or leaves bred in the spring; or thick as swarms of

       flies

       Throng then to sheep-cotes, when each swarm his erring wing applies

       To milk dew'd on the milk-maid's pails; all eagerly dispos'd

       To give to ruin th' Ilians. And as in rude heaps clos'd,

       Though huge goatherds are at their food, the goatherds eas'ly yet

       Sort into sundry herds; so here the chiefs in battle set

       Here tribes, here nations, ord'ring all. Amongst whom shin'd the

       king,

       With eyes like lightning-loving Jove, his forehead answering,

       In breast like Neptune, Mars in waist. And as a goodly bull

       Most eminent of all a herd, most wrong, most masterful,

       So Agamemnon, Jove that day made overheighten clear

       That heav'n-bright army, and preferr'd to all th' heroës there.

       Now tell me, Muses, you that dwell in heav'nly roofs, (for you

       Are Goddesses, are present here, are wise, and all things know,

       We only trust the voice of fame, know nothing,) who they were

       That here were captains of the Greeks, commanding princes here.

       The multitude exceed my song, though fitted to my choice

       Ten tongues were, harden'd palates ten, a breast of brass, a voice

       Infract and trump-like; that great work, unless the seed of Jove,

       The deathless Muses, undertake, maintains a pitch above

       All mortal pow'rs. The princes then, and navy that did bring

       Those so inenarrable troops, and all their soils, I sing.

THE CATALOGUE OF THE GRECIAN SHIPS AND CAPTAINS

      Peleüs, and Leitus, all that Bœotia bred,

       Arcesilaus, Clonius, and Prothoenor led;

       Th' inhabitants of Hyria, and stony Aulida,

       Schæne, Scole, the hilly Eteon, and holy Thespia,

       Of Græa, and great Mycalesse, that hath the ample plain,

       Of Harma, and Ilesius, and all that did remain

       In Eryth, and in Eleon, in Hylen, Peteona,

       In fair Ocalea, and, the town well-builded, Medeona,

       Copas, Eutresis, Thisbe, that for pigeons doth surpass,

       Of Coroneia, Haliart, that hath such store of grass,

       All those that in Platæa dwelt, that Glissa did possess,

       And Hypothebs, whose well-built walls are rare and fellowless,

       In rich Onchestus' famous wood, to wat'ry Neptune vow'd,

       And Arne, where the vine-trees СКАЧАТЬ