Homer

c.800 BC

THE ILIAD

translated by Samuel Butler

BOOK XIX

NOW when Dawn in robe of saffron was hasting from the
streams of Oceanus, to bring light to mortals and immortals, Thetis reached the
ships with the armour that the god had given her. She found her son fallen about
the body of Patroclus and weeping bitterly. Many also of his followers were
weeping round him, but when the goddess came among them she clasped his hand in
her own, saying, “My son, grieve as we may we must let this man lie, for it is
by heaven’s will that he has fallen; now, therefore, accept from Vulcan this
rich and goodly armour, which no man has ever yet borne upon his shoulders.”

As she spoke she set the armour before Achilles, and it
rang out bravely as she did so. The Myrmidons were struck with awe, and none
dared look full at it, for they were afraid; but Achilles was roused to still
greater fury, and his eyes gleamed with a fierce light, for he was glad when he
handled the splendid present which the god had made him. Then, as soon as he had
satisfied himself with looking at it, he said to his mother, “Mother, the god
has given me armour, meet handiwork for an immortal and such as no-one living
could have fashioned; I will now arm, but I much fear that flies will settle
upon the son of Menoetius and breed worms about his wounds, so that his body,
now he is dead, will be disfigured and the flesh will rot.”

Silver-footed Thetis answered, “My son, be not disquieted
about this matter. I will find means to protect him from the swarms of noisome
flies that prey on the bodies of men who have been killed in battle. He may lie
for a whole year, and his flesh shall still be as sound as ever, or even
sounder. Call, therefore, the Achaean heroes in assembly; unsay your anger
against Agamemnon; arm at once, and fight with might and main.”

As she spoke she put strength and courage into his heart,
and she then dropped ambrosia and red nectar into the wounds of Patroclus, that
his body might suffer no change.

Then Achilles went out upon the seashore, and with a loud
cry called on the Achaean heroes. On this even those who as yet had stayed
always at the ships, the pilots and helmsmen, and even the stewards who were
about the ships and served out rations, all came to the place of assembly
because Achilles had shown himself after having held aloof so long from
fighting. Two sons of Mars, Ulysses and the son of Tydeus, came limping, for
their wounds still pained them; nevertheless they came, and took their seats in
the front row of the assembly. Last of all came Agamemnon, king of men, he too
wounded, for Coon son of Antenor had struck him with a spear in battle.

When the Achaeans were got together Achilles rose and said,
“Son of Atreus, surely it would have been better alike for both you and me, when
we two were in such high anger about Briseis, surely it would have been better,
had Diana’s arrow slain her at the ships on the day when I took her after having
sacked Lyrnessus. For so, many an Achaean the less would have bitten dust before
the foe in the days of my anger. It has been well for Hector and the Trojans,
but the Achaeans will long indeed remember our quarrel. Now, however, let it be,
for it is over. If we have been angry, necessity has schooled our anger. I put
it from me: I dare not nurse it for ever; therefore, bid the Achaeans arm
forthwith that I may go out against the Trojans, and learn whether they will be
in a mind to sleep by the ships or no. Glad, I ween, will he be to rest his
knees who may fly my spear when I wield it.”

Thus did he speak, and the Achaeans rejoiced in that he had
put away his anger.

Then Agamemnon spoke, rising in his place, and not going
into the middle of the assembly. “Danaan heroes,” said he, “servants of Mars, it
is well to listen when a man stands up to speak, and it is not seemly to
interrupt him, or it will go hard even with a practised speaker. Who can either
hear or speak in an uproar? Even the finest orator will be disconcerted by it. I
will expound to the son of Peleus, and do you other Achaeans heed me and mark me
well. Often have the Achaeans spoken to me of this matter and upbraided me, but
it was not I that did it: Jove, and Fate, and Erinys that walks in darkness
struck me mad when we were assembled on the day that I took from Achilles the
meed that had been awarded to him. What could I do? All things are in the hand
of heaven, and Folly, eldest of Jove’s daughters, shuts men’s eyes to their
destruction. She walks delicately, not on the solid earth, but hovers over the
heads of men to make them stumble or to ensnare them.

“Time was when she fooled Jove himself, who they say is
greatest whether of gods or men; for Juno, woman though she was, beguiled him on
the day when Alcmena was to bring forth mighty Hercules in the fair city of
Thebes. He told it out among the gods saying, ‘Hear me, all gods and goddesses,
that I may speak even as I am minded; this day shall an Ilithuia, helper of
women who are in labour, bring a man child into the world who shall be lord over
all that dwell about him who are of my blood and lineage.’ Then said Juno all
crafty and full of guile, ‘You will play false, and will not hold to your word.
Swear me, O Olympian, swear me a great oath, that he who shall this day fall
between the feet of a woman, shall be lord over all that dwell about him who are
of your blood and lineage.’

“Thus she spoke, and Jove suspected her not, but swore the
great oath, to his much ruing thereafter. For Juno darted down from the high
summit of Olympus, and went in haste to Achaean Argos where she knew that the
noble wife of Sthenelus son of Perseus then was. She being with child and in her
seventh month, Juno brought the child to birth though there was a month still
wanting, but she stayed the offspring of Alcmena, and kept back the Ilithuiae.
Then she went to tell Jove the son of Saturn, and said, ‘Father Jove, lord of
the lightning–I have a word for your ear. There is a fine child born this day,
Eurystheus, son to Sthenelus the son of Perseus; he is of your lineage; it is
well, therefore, that he should reign over the Argives.’

“On this Jove was stung to the very quick, and in his rage
he caught Folly by the hair, and swore a great oath that never should she again
invade starry heaven and Olympus, for she was the bane of all. Then he whirled
her round with a twist of his hand, and flung her down from heaven so that she
fell on to the fields of mortal men; and he was ever angry with her when he saw
his son groaning under the cruel labours that Eurystheus laid upon him. Even so
did I grieve when mighty Hector was killing the Argives at their ships, and all
the time I kept thinking of Folly who had so baned me. I was blind, and Jove
robbed me of my reason; I will now make atonement, and will add much treasure by
way of amends. Go, therefore, into battle, you and your people with you. I will
give you all that Ulysses offered you yesterday in your tents: or if it so
please you, wait, though you would fain fight at once, and my squires shall
bring the gifts from my ship, that you may see whether what I give you is
enough.”

And Achilles answered, “Son of Atreus, king of men
Agamemnon, you can give such gifts as you think proper, or you can withhold
them: it is in your own hands. Let us now set battle in array; it is not well to
tarry talking about trifles, for there is a deed which is as yet to do. Achilles
shall again be seen fighting among the foremost, and laying low the ranks of the
Trojans: bear this in mind each one of you when he is fighting.”

Then Ulysses said, “Achilles, godlike and brave, send not
the Achaeans thus against Ilius to fight the Trojans fasting, for the battle
will be no brief one, when it is once begun, and heaven has filled both sides
with fury; bid them first take food both bread and wine by the ships, for in
this there is strength and stay. No man can do battle the livelong day to the
going down of the sun if he is without food; however much he may want to fight
his strength will fail him before he knows it; hunger and thirst will find him
out, and his limbs will grow weary under him. But a man can fight all day if he
is full fed with meat and wine; his heart beats high, and his strength will stay
till he has routed all his foes; therefore, send the people away and bid them
prepare their meal; King Agamemnon will bring out the gifts in presence of the
assembly, that all may see them and you may be satisfied. Moreover let him swear
an oath before the Argives that he has never gone up into the couch of Briseis,
nor been with her after the manner of men and women; and do you, too, show
yourself of a gracious mind; let Agamemnon entertain you in his tents with a
feast of reconciliation, that so you may have had your dues in full. As for you,
son of Atreus, treat people more righteously in future; it is no disgrace even
to a king that he should make amends if he was wrong in the first instance.”

And King Agamemnon answered, “Son of Laertes, your words
please me well, for throughout you have spoken wisely. I will swear as you would
have me do; I do so of my own free will, neither shall I take the name of heaven
in vain. Let, then, Achilles wait, though he would fain fight at once, and do
you others wait also, till the gifts come from my tent and we ratify the oath
with sacrifice. Thus, then, do I charge you: take some noble young Achaeans with
you, and bring from my tents the gifts that I promised yesterday to Achilles,
and bring the women also; furthermore let Talthybius find me a boar from those
that are with the host, and make it ready for sacrifice to Jove and to the sun.”

Then said Achilles, “Son of Atreus, king of men Agamemnon,
see to these matters at some other season, when there is breathing time and when
I am calmer. Would you have men eat while the bodies of those whom Hector son of
Priam slew are still lying mangled upon the plain? Let the sons of the Achaeans,
say I, fight fasting and without food, till we have avenged them; afterwards at
the going down of the sun let them eat their fill. As for me, Patroclus is lying
dead in my tent, all hacked and hewn, with his feet to the door, and his
comrades are mourning round him. Therefore I can take thought of nothing save
only slaughter and blood and the rattle in the throat of the dying.”

Ulysses answered, “Achilles, son of Peleus, mightiest of
all the Achaeans, in battle you are better than I, and that more than a little,
but in counsel I am much before you, for I am older and of greater knowledge.
Therefore be patient under my words. Fighting is a thing of which men soon
surfeit, and when Jove, who is war’s steward, weighs the upshot, it may well
prove that the straw which our sickles have reaped is far heavier than the
grain. It may not be that the Achaeans should mourn the dead with their bellies;
day by day men fall thick and threefold continually; when should we have respite
from our sorrow? Let us mourn our dead for a day and bury them out of sight and
mind, but let those of us who are left eat and drink that we may arm and fight
our foes more fiercely. In that hour let no man hold back, waiting for a second
summons; such summons shall bode ill for him who is found lagging behind at our
ships; let us rather sally as one man and loose the fury of war upon the
Trojans.”

When he had thus spoken he took with him the sons of
Nestor, with Meges son of Phyleus, Thoas, Meriones, Lycomedes son of Creontes,
and Melanippus, and went to the tent of Agamemnon son of Atreus. The word was
not sooner said than the deed was done: they brought out the seven tripods which
Agamemnon had promised, with the twenty metal cauldrons and the twelve horses;
they also brought the women skilled in useful arts, seven in number, with
Briseis, which made eight. Ulysses weighed out the ten talents of gold and then
led the way back, while the young Achaeans brought the rest of the gifts, and
laid them in the middle of the assembly.

Agamemnon then rose, and Talthybius whose voice was like
that of a god came to him with the boar. The son of Atreus drew the knife which
he wore by the scabbard of his mighty sword, and began by cutting off some
bristles from the boar, lifting up his hands in prayer as he did so. The other
Achaeans sat where they were all silent and orderly to hear the king, and
Agamemnon looked into the vault of heaven and prayed saying, “I call Jove the
first and mightiest of all gods to witness, I call also Earth and Sun and the
Erinyes who dwell below and take vengeance on him who shall swear falsely, that
I have laid no hand upon the girl Briseis, neither to take her to my bed nor
otherwise, but that she has remained in my tents inviolate. If I swear falsely
may heaven visit me with all the penalties which it metes out to those who
perjure themselves.”

He cut the boar’s throat as he spoke, whereon Talthybius
whirled it round his head, and flung it into the wide sea to feed the fishes.
Then Achilles also rose and said to the Argives, “Father Jove, of a truth you
blind men’s eyes and bane them. The son of Atreus had not else stirred me to so
fierce an anger, nor so stubbornly taken Briseis from me against my will. Surely
Jove must have counselled the destruction of many an Argive. Go, now, and take
your food that we may begin fighting.”

On this he broke up the assembly, and every man went back
to his own ship. The Myrmidons attended to the presents and took them away to
the ship of Achilles. They placed them in his tents, while the stable-men drove
the horses in among the others.

Briseis, fair as Venus, when she saw the mangled body of
Patroclus, flung herself upon it and cried aloud, tearing her breast, her neck,
and her lovely face with both her hands. Beautiful as a goddess she wept and
said, “Patroclus, dearest friend, when I went hence I left you living; I return,
O prince, to find you dead; thus do fresh sorrows multiply upon me one after the
other. I saw him to whom my father and mother married me, cut down before our
city, and my three own dear brothers perished with him on the self-same day; but
you, Patroclus, even when Achilles slew my husband and sacked the city of noble
Mynes, told me that I was not to weep, for you said you would make Achilles
marry me, and take me back with him to Phthia, we should have a wedding feast
among the Myrmidons. You were always kind to me and I shall never cease to
grieve for you.”

She wept as she spoke, and the women joined in her
lament-making as though their tears were for Patroclus, but in truth each was
weeping for her own sorrows. The elders of the Achaeans gathered round Achilles
and prayed him to take food, but he groaned and would not do so. “I pray you,”
said he, “if any comrade will hear me, bid me neither eat nor drink, for I am in
great heaviness, and will stay fasting even to the going down of the sun.”

On this he sent the other princes away, save only the two
sons of Atreus and Ulysses, Nestor, Idomeneus, and the knight Phoenix, who
stayed behind and tried to comfort him in the bitterness of his sorrow: but he
would not be comforted till he should have flung himself into the jaws of
battle, and he fetched sigh on sigh, thinking ever of Patroclus. Then he said–

“Hapless and dearest comrade, you it was who would get a
good dinner ready for me at once and without delay when the Achaeans were
hasting to fight the Trojans; now, therefore, though I have meat and drink in my
tents, yet will I fast for sorrow. Grief greater than this I could not know, not
even though I were to hear of the death of my father, who is now in Phthia
weeping for the loss of me his son, who am here fighting the Trojans in a
strange land for the accursed sake of Helen, nor yet though I should hear that
my son is no more–he who is being brought up in Scyros–if indeed Neoptolemus
is still living. Till now I made sure that I alone was to fall here at Troy away
from Argos, while you were to return to Phthia, bring back my son with you in
your own ship, and show him all my property, my bondsmen, and the greatness of
my house–for Peleus must surely be either dead, or what little life remains to
him is oppressed alike with the infirmities of age and ever present fear lest he
should hear the sad tidings of my death.”

He wept as he spoke, and the elders sighed in concert as
each thought on what he had left at home behind him. The son of Saturn looked
down with pity upon them, and said presently to Minerva, “My child, you have
quite deserted your hero; is he then gone so clean out of your recollection?
There he sits by the ships all desolate for the loss of his dear comrade, and
though the others are gone to their dinner he will neither eat nor drink. Go
then and drop nectar and ambrosia into his breast, that he may know no hunger.”

With these words he urged Minerva, who was already of the
same mind. She darted down from heaven into the air like some falcon sailing on
his broad wings and screaming. Meanwhile the Achaeans were arming throughout the
host, and when Minerva had dropped nectar and ambrosia into Achilles so that no
cruel hunger should cause his limbs to fail him, she went back to the house of
her mighty father. Thick as the chill snow-flakes shed from the hand of Jove and
borne on the keen blasts of the north wind, even so thick did the gleaming
helmets, the bossed shields, the strongly plated breastplates, and the ashen
spears stream from the ships. The sheen pierced the sky, the whole land was
radiant with their flashing armour, and the sound of the tramp of their treading
rose from under their feet. In the midst of them all Achilles put on his armour;
he gnashed his teeth, his eyes gleamed like fire, for his grief was greater than
he could bear. Thus, then, full of fury against the Trojans, did he don the gift
of the god, the armour that Vulcan had made him.

First he put on the goodly greaves fitted with ancle-clasps,
and next he did on the breastplate about his chest. He slung the silver-studded
sword of bronze about his shoulders, and then took up the shield so great and
strong that shone afar with a splendour as of the moon. As the light seen by
sailors from out at sea, when men have lit a fire in their homestead high up
among the mountains, but the sailors are carried out to sea by wind and storm
far from the haven where they would be–even so did the gleam of Achilles’
wondrous shield strike up into the heavens. He lifted the redoubtable helmet,
and set it upon his head, from whence it shone like a star, and the golden
plumes which Vulcan had set thick about the ridge of the helmet, waved all
around it. Then Achilles made trial of himself in his armour to see whether it
fitted him, so that his limbs could play freely under it, and it seemed to buoy
him up as though it had been wings.

He also drew his father’s spear out of the spear-stand, a
spear so great and heavy and strong that none of the Achaeans save only Achilles
had strength to wield it; this was the spear of Pelian ash from the topmost
ridges of Mt. Pelion, which Chiron had once given to Peleus, fraught with the
death of heroes. Automedon and Alcimus busied themselves with the harnessing of
his horses; they made the bands fast about them, and put the bit in their
mouths, drawing the reins back towards the chariot. Automedon, whip in hand,
sprang up behind the horses, and after him Achilles mounted in full armour,
resplendent as the sun-god Hyperion. Then with a loud voice he chided with his
father’s horses saying, “Xanthus and Balius, famed offspring of Podarge–this
time when we have done fighting be sure and bring your driver safely back to the
host of the Achaeans, and do not leave him dead on the plain as you did
Patroclus.”

Then fleet Xanthus answered under the yoke–for white-armed
Juno had endowed him with human speech–and he bowed his head till his mane
touched the ground as it hung down from under the yoke-band. “Dread Achilles,”
said he, “we will indeed save you now, but the day of your death is near, and
the blame will not be ours, for it will be heaven and stern fate that will
destroy you. Neither was it through any sloth or slackness on our part that the
Trojans stripped Patroclus of his armour; it was the mighty god whom lovely Leto
bore that slew him as he fought among the foremost, and vouchsafed a triumph to
Hector. We two can fly as swiftly as Zephyrus who they say is fleetest of all
winds; nevertheless it is your doom to fall by the hand of a man and of a god.”

When he had thus said the Erinyes stayed his speech, and
Achilles answered him in great sadness, saying, “Why, O Xanthus, do you thus
foretell my death? You need not do so, for I well know that I am to fall here,
far from my dear father and mother; none the more, however, shall I stay my hand
till I have given the Trojans their fill of fighting.”

So saying, with a loud cry he drove his horses to the
front.