The Iliad of Homer. Homer

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СКАЧАТЬ 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,

       046 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

       047 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 048 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 СКАЧАТЬ