<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=410300" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Iliad: Book 19</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">Now when Dawn in robe of saffron was hasting from the streams of<br>Oceanus, to bring light to mortals and immortals, Thetis reached the<br>ships with the armour that the god had given her. She found her son<br>fallen about the body of Patroclus and weeping bitterly. Many also<br>of his followers were weeping round him, but when the goddess came<br>among them she clasped his hand in her own, saying, "My son, grieve as<br>we may we must let this man lie, for it is by heaven's will that he<br>has fallen; now, therefore, accept from Vulcan this rich and goodly<br>armour, which no man has ever yet borne upon his shoulders."<br>As she spoke she set the armour before Achilles, and it rang out<br>bravely as she did so. The Myrmidons were struck with awe, and none<br>dared look full at it, for they were afraid; but Achilles was roused<br>to still greater fury, and his eyes gleamed with a fierce light, for<br>he was glad when he handled the splendid present which the god had<br>made him. Then, as soon as he had satisfied himself with looking at<br>it, he said to his mother, "Mother, the god has given me armour,<br>meet handiwork for an immortal and such as no living could have<br>fashioned; I will now arm, but I much fear that flies will settle upon<br>the son of Menoetius and breed worms about his wounds, so that his<br>body, now he is dead, will be disfigured and the flesh will rot."<br>Silver-footed Thetis answered, "My son, be not disquieted about this<br>matter. I will find means to protect him from the swarms of noisome<br>flies that prey on the bodies of men who have been killed in battle.<br>He may lie for a whole year, and his flesh shall still be as sound<br>as ever, or even sounder. Call, therefore, the Achaean heroes in<br>assembly; unsay your anger against Agamemnon; arm at once, and fight<br>with might and main."<br>As she spoke she put strength and courage into his heart, and she<br>then dropped ambrosia and red nectar into the wounds of Patroclus,<br>that his body might suffer no change.<br>Then Achilles went out upon the seashore, and with a loud cry called<br>on the Achaean heroes. On this even those who as yet had stayed always<br>at the ships, the pilots and helmsmen, and even the stewards who<br>were about the ships and served out rations, all came to the place<br>of assembly because Achilles had shown himself after having held aloof<br>so long from fighting. Two sons of Mars, Ulysses and the son of<br>Tydeus, came limping, for their wounds still pained them; nevertheless<br>they came, and took their seats in the front row of the assembly. Last<br>of all came Agamemnon, king of men, he too wounded, for Coon son of<br>Antenor had struck him with a spear in battle.<br>When the Achaeans were got together Achilles rose and said, "Son<br>of Atreus, surely it would have been better alike for both you and me,<br>when we two were in such high anger about Briseis, surely it would<br>have been better, had Diana's arrow slain her at the ships on the<br>day when I took her after having sacked Lyrnessus. For so, many an<br>Achaean the less would have bitten dust before the foe in the days<br>of my anger. It has been well for Hector and the Trojans, but the<br>Achaeans will long indeed remember our quarrel. Now, however, let it<br>be, for it is over. If we have been angry, necessity has schooled<br>our anger. I put it from me: I dare not nurse it for ever;<br>therefore, bid the Achaeans arm forthwith that I may go out against<br>the Trojans, and learn whether they will be in a mind to sleep by<br>the ships or no. Glad, I ween, will he be to rest his knees who may<br>fly my spear when I wield it."<br>Thus did he speak, and the Achaeans rejoiced in that he had put away<br>his anger.<br>Then Agamemnon spoke, rising in his place, and not going into the<br>middle of the assembly. "Danaan heroes," said he, "servants of Mars,<br>it is well to listen when a man stands up to speak, and it is not<br>seemly to interrupt him, or it will go hard even with a practised<br>speaker. Who can either hear or speak in an uproar? Even the finest<br>orator will be disconcerted by it. I will expound to the son of<br>Peleus, and do you other Achaeans heed me and mark me well. Often have<br>the Achaeans spoken to me of this matter and upbraided me, but it<br>was not I that did it: Jove, and Fate, and Erinys that walks in<br>darkness struck me mad when we were assembled on the day that I took<br>from Achilles the meed that had been awarded to him. What could I<br>do? All things are in the hand of heaven, and Folly, eldest of<br>Jove's daughters, shuts men's eyes to their destruction. She walks<br>delicately, not on the solid earth, but hovers over the heads of men<br>to make them stumble or to ensnare them.<br>"Time was when she fooled Jove himself, who they say is greatest<br>whether of gods or men; for Juno, woman though she was, beguiled him<br>on the day when Alcmena was to bring forth mighty Hercules in the fair<br>city of Thebes. He told it out among the gods saying, 'Hear me all<br>gods and goddesses, that I may speak even as I am minded; this day<br>shall an Ilithuia, helper of women who are in labour, bring a man<br>child into the world who shall be lord over all that dwell about him<br>who are of my blood and lineage.' Then said Juno all crafty and full<br>of guile, 'You will play false, and will not hold to your word.<br>Swear me, O Olympian, swear me a great oath, that he who shall this<br>day fall between the feet of a woman, shall be lord over all that<br>dwell about him who are of your blood and lineage.'<br>"Thus she spoke, and Jove suspected her not, but swore the great<br>oath, to his much ruing thereafter. For Juno darted down from the high<br>summit of Olympus, and went in haste to Achaean Argos where she knew<br>that the noble wife of Sthenelus son of Perseus then was. She being<br>with child and in her seventh month, Juno brought the child to birth<br>though there was a month still wanting, but she stayed the offspring<br>of Alcmena, and kept back the Ilithuiae. Then she went to tell Jove<br>the son of Saturn, and said, 'Father Jove, lord of the lightning- I<br>have a word for your ear. There is a fine child born this day,<br>Eurystheus, son to Sthenelus the son of Perseus; he is of your<br>lineage; it is well, therefore, that he should reign over the<br>Argives.'<br>"On this Jove was stung to the very quick, and in his rage he caught<br>Folly by the hair, and swore a great oath that never should she<br>again invade starry heaven and Olympus, for she was the bane of all.<br>Then he whirled her round with a twist of his hand, and flung her down<br>from heaven so that she fell on to the fields of mortal men; and he<br>was ever angry with her when he saw his son groaning under the cruel<br>labours that Eurystheus laid upon him. Even so did I grieve when<br>mighty Hector was killing the Argives at their ships, and all the time<br>I kept thinking of Folly who had so baned me. I was blind, and Jove<br>robbed me of my reason; I will now make atonement, and will add much<br>treasure by way of amends. Go, therefore, into battle, you and your<br>people with you. I will give you all that Ulysses offered you<br>yesterday in your tents: or if it so please you, wait, though you<br>would fain fight at once, and my squires shall bring the gifts from my<br>ship, that you may see whether what I give you is enough."<br>And Achilles answered, "Son of Atreus, king of men Agamemnon, you<br>can give such gifts as you think proper, or you can withhold them:<br>it is in your own hands. Let us now set battle in array; it is not<br>well to tarry talking about trifles, for there is a deed which is as<br>yet to do. Achilles shall again be seen fighting among the foremost,<br>and laying low the ranks of the Trojans: bear this in mind each one of<br>you when he is fighting."<br>Then Ulysses said, "Achilles, godlike and brave, send not the<br>Achaeans thus against Ilius to fight the Trojans fasting, for the<br>battle will be no brief one, when it is once begun, and heaven has<br>filled both sides with fury; bid them first take food both bread and<br>wine by the ships, for in this there is strength and stay. No man<br>can do battle the livelong day to the going down of the sun if he is<br>without food; however much he may want to fight his strength will fail<br>him before he knows it; hunger and thirst will find him out, and his<br>limbs will grow weary under him. But a man can fight all day if he<br>is full fed with meat and wine; his heart beats high, and his strength<br>will stay till he has routed all his foes; therefore, send the<br>people away and bid them prepare their meal; King Agamemnon will bring<br>out the gifts in presence of the assembly, that all may see them and<br>you may be satisfied. Moreover let him swear an oath before the<br>Argives that he has never gone up into the couch of Briseis, nor<br>been with her after the manner of men and women; and do you, too, show<br>yourself of a gracious mind; let Agamemnon entertain you in his<br>tents with a feast of reconciliation, that so you may have had your<br>dues in full. As for you, son of Atreus, treat people more righteously<br>in future; it is no disgrace even to a king that he should make amends<br>if he was wrong in the first instance."<br>And King Agamemnon answered, "Son of Laertes, your words please me<br>well, for throughout you have spoken wisely. I will swear as you would<br>have me do; I do so of my own free will, neither shall I take the name<br>of heaven in vain. Let, then, Achilles wait, though he would fain<br>fight at once, and do you others wait also, till the gifts come from<br>my tent and we ratify the oath with sacrifice. Thus, then, do I charge<br>you: take some noble young Achaeans with you, and bring from my<br>tents the gifts that I promised yesterday to Achilles, and bring the<br>women also; furthermore let Talthybius find me a boar from those<br>that are with the host, and make it ready for sacrifice to Jove and to<br>the sun."<br>Then said Achilles, "Son of Atreus, king of men Agamemnon, see to<br>these matters at some other season, when there is breathing time and<br>when I am calmer. Would you have men eat while the bodies of those<br>whom Hector son of Priam slew are still lying mangled upon the<br>plain? Let the sons of the Achaeans, say I, fight fasting and<br>without food, till we have avenged them; afterwards at the going<br>down of the sun let them eat their fill. As for me, Patroclus is lying<br>dead in my tent, all hacked and hewn, with his feet to the door, and<br>his comrades are mourning round him. Therefore I can take thought of<br>nothing save only slaughter and blood and the rattle in the throat<br>of the dying."<br>Ulysses answered, "Achilles, son of Peleus, mightiest of all the<br>Achaeans, in battle you are better than I, and that more than a<br>little, but in counsel I am much before you, for I am older and of<br>greater knowledge. Therefore be patient under my words. Fighting is<br>a thing of which men soon surfeit, and when Jove, who is wars steward,<br>weighs the upshot, it may well prove that the straw which our<br>sickles have reaped is far heavier than the grain. It may not be<br>that the Achaeans should mourn the dead with their bellies; day by day<br>men fall thick and threefold continually; when should we have<br>respite from our sorrow? Let us mourn our dead for a day and bury them<br>out of sight and mind, but let those of us who are left eat and<br>drink that we may arm and fight our foes more fiercely. In that hour<br>let no man hold back, waiting for a second summons; such summons shall<br>bode ill for him who is found lagging behind at our ships; let us<br>rather sally as one man and loose the fury of war upon the Trojans."<br>When he had thus spoken he took with him the sons of Nestor, with<br>Meges son of Phyleus, Thoas, Meriones, Lycomedes son of Creontes,<br>and Melanippus, and went to the tent of Agamemnon son of Atreus. The<br>word was not sooner said than the deed was done: they brought out<br>the seven tripods which Agamemnon had promised, with the twenty<br>metal cauldrons and the twelve horses; they also brought the women<br>skilled in useful arts, seven in number, with Briseis, which made<br>eight. Ulysses weighed out the ten talents of gold and then led the<br>way back, while the young Achaeans brought the rest of the gifts,<br>and laid them in the middle of the assembly.<br>Agamemnon then rose, and Talthybius whose voice was like that of a<br>god came to him with the boar. The son of Atreus drew the knife<br>which he wore by the scabbard of his mighty sword, and began by<br>cutting off some bristles from the boar, lifting up his hands in<br>prayer as he did so. The other Achaeans sat where they were all silent<br>and orderly to hear the king, and Agamemnon looked into the vault of<br>heaven and prayed saying, "I call Jove the first and mightiest of<br>all gods to witness, I call also Earth and Sun and the Erinyes who<br>dwell below and take vengeance on him who shall swear falsely, that<br>I have laid no hand upon the girl Briseis, neither to take her to my<br>bed nor otherwise, but that she has remained in my tents inviolate. If<br>I swear falsely may heaven visit me with all the penalties which it<br>metes out to those who perjure themselves."<br>He cut the boar's throat as he spoke, whereon Talthybius whirled<br>it round his head, and flung it into the wide sea to feed the<br>fishes. Then Achilles also rose and said to the Argives, "Father Jove,<br>of a truth you blind men's eyes and bane them. The son of Atreus had<br>not else stirred me to so fierce an anger, nor so stubbornly taken<br>Briseis from me against my will. Surely Jove must have counselled<br>the destruction of many an Argive. Go, now, and take your food that we<br>may begin fighting."<br>On this he broke up the assembly, and every man went back to his own<br>ship. The Myrmidons attended to the presents and took them away to the<br>ship of Achilles. They placed them in his tents, while the<br>stable-men drove the horses in among the others.<br>Briseis, fair as Venus, when she saw the mangled body of<br>Patroclus, flung herself upon it and cried aloud, tearing her<br>breast, her neck, and her lovely face with both her hands. Beautiful<br>as a goddess she wept and said, "Patroclus, dearest friend, when I<br>went hence I left you living; I return, O prince, to find you dead;<br>thus do fresh sorrows multiply upon me one after the other. I saw<br>him to whom my father and mother married me, cut down before our city,<br>and my three own dear brothers perished with him on the self-same day;<br>but you, Patroclus, even when Achilles slew my husband and sacked<br>the city of noble Mynes, told me that I was not to weep, for you<br>said you would make Achilles marry me, and take me back with him to<br>Phthia, we should have a wedding feast among the Myrmidons. You were<br>always kind to me and I shall never cease to grieve for you."<br>She wept as she spoke, and the women joined in her lament-making<br>as though their tears were for Patroclus, but in truth each was<br>weeping for her own sorrows. The elders of the Achaeans gathered round<br>Achilles and prayed him to take food, but he groaned and would not<br>do so. "I pray you," said he, "if any comrade will hear me, bid me<br>neither eat nor drink, for I am in great heaviness, and will stay<br>fasting even to the going down of the sun."<br>On this he sent the other princes away, save only the two sons of<br>Atreus and Ulysses, Nestor, Idomeneus, and the knight Phoenix, who<br>stayed behind and tried to comfort him in the bitterness of his<br>sorrow: but he would not be comforted till he should have flung<br>himself into the jaws of battle, and he fetched sigh on sigh, thinking<br>ever of Patroclus. Then he said-<br>"Hapless and dearest comrade, you it was who would get a good dinner<br>ready for me at once and without delay when the Achaeans were<br>hasting to fight the Trojans; now, therefore, though I have meat and<br>drink in my tents, yet will I fast for sorrow. Grief greater than this<br>I could not know, not even though I were to hear of the death of my<br>father, who is now in Phthia weeping for the loss of me his son, who<br>am here fighting the Trojans in a strange land for the accursed sake<br>of Helen, nor yet though I should hear that my son is no more- he<br>who is being brought up in Scyros- if indeed Neoptolemus is still<br>living. Till now I made sure that I alone was to fall here at Troy<br>away from Argos, while you were to return to Phthia, bring back my son<br>with you in your own ship, and show him all my property, my<br>bondsmen, and the greatness of my house- for Peleus must surely be<br>either dead, or what little life remains to him is oppressed alike<br>with the infirmities of age and ever present fear lest he should<br>hear the sad tidings of my death."<br>He wept as he spoke, and the elders sighed in concert as each<br>thought on what he had left at home behind him. The son of Saturn<br>looked down with pity upon them, and said presently to Minerva, "My<br>child, you have quite deserted your hero; is he then gone so clean out<br>of your recollection? There he sits by the ships all desolate for<br>the loss of his dear comrade, and though the others are gone to<br>their dinner he will neither eat nor drink. Go then and drop nectar<br>and ambrosia into his breast, that he may know no hunger."<br>With these words he urged Minerva, who was already of the same mind.<br>She darted down from heaven into the air like some falcon sailing on<br>his broad wings and screaming. Meanwhile the Achaeans were arming<br>throughout the host, and when Minerva had dropped nectar and<br>ambrosia into Achilles so that no cruel hunger should cause his<br>limbs to fail him, she went back to the house of her mighty father.<br>Thick as the chill snow-flakes shed from the hand of Jove and borne on<br>the keen blasts of the north wind, even so thick did the gleaming<br>helmets, the bossed shields, the strongly plated breastplates, and the<br>ashen spears stream from the ships. The sheen pierced the sky, the<br>whole land was radiant with their flashing armour, and the sound of<br>the tramp of their treading rose from under their feet. In the midst<br>of them all Achilles put on his armour; he gnashed his teeth, his eyes<br>gleamed like fire, for his grief was greater than he could bear. Thus,<br>then, full of fury against the Trojans, did he don the gift of the<br>god, the armour that Vulcan had made him.<br>First he put on the goodly greaves fitted with ancle-clasps, and<br>next he did on the breastplate about his chest. He slung the<br>silver-studded sword of bronze about his shoulders, and then took up<br>the shield so great and strong that shone afar with a splendour as<br>of the moon. As the light seen by sailors from out at sea, when men<br>have lit a fire in their homestead high up among the mountains, but<br>the sailors are carried out to sea by wind and storm far from the<br>haven where they would be- even so did the gleam of Achilles' wondrous<br>shield strike up into the heavens. He lifted the redoubtable helmet,<br>and set it upon his head, from whence it shone like a star, and the<br>golden plumes which Vulcan had set thick about the ridge of the<br>helmet, waved all around it. Then Achilles made trial of himself in<br>his armour to see whether it fitted him, so that his limbs could<br>play freely under it, and it seemed to buoy him up as though it had<br>been wings.<br>He also drew his father's spear out of the spear-stand, a spear so<br>great and heavy and strong that none of the Achaeans save only<br>Achilles had strength to wield it; this was the spear of Pelian ash<br>from the topmost ridges of Mt. Pelion, which Chiron had once given<br>to Peleus, fraught with the death of heroes. Automedon and Alcimus<br>busied themselves with the harnessing of his horses; they made the<br>bands fast about them, and put the bit in their mouths, drawing the<br>reins back towards the chariot. Automedon, whip in hand, sprang up<br>behind the horses, and after him Achilles mounted in full armour,<br>resplendent as the sun-god Hyperion. Then with a loud voice he<br>chided with his father's horses saying, "Xanthus and Balius, famed<br>offspring of Podarge- this time when we have done fighting be sure and<br>bring your driver safely back to the host of the Achaeans, and do<br>not leave him dead on the plain as you did Patroclus."<br>Then fleet Xanthus answered under the yoke- for white-armed Juno had<br>endowed him with human speech- and he bowed his head till his mane<br>touched the ground as it hung down from under the yoke-band. "Dread<br>Achilles," said he, "we will indeed save you now, but the day of<br>your death is near, and the blame will not be ours, for it will be<br>heaven and stern fate that will destroy you. Neither was it through<br>any sloth or slackness on our part that the Trojans stripped Patroclus<br>of his armour; it was the mighty god whom lovely Leto bore that slew<br>him as he fought among the foremost, and vouchsafed a triumph to<br>Hector. We two can fly as swiftly as Zephyrus who they say is fleetest<br>of all winds; nevertheless it is your doom to fall by the hand of a<br>man and of a god."<br>When he had thus said the Erinyes stayed his speech, and Achilles<br>answered him in great sadness, saying, "Why, O Xanthus, do you thus<br>foretell my death? You need not do so, for I well know that I am to<br>fall here, far from my dear father and mother; none the more, however,<br>shall I stay my hand till I have given the Trojans their fill of<br>fighting."<br>So saying, with a loud cry he drove his horses to the front.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Homer">Homer</a>, translated by Samuel Butler<div class=q> <img src="https://www.citatepedia.ro/g/32share.png" style="float:left" alt="Share"> <script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=410300" data-title="The Iliad: Book 19 de Homer" data-description="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 weepin..."></div> </div> </div>

solid border dashed border dotted border double border groove border ridge border inset border outset border no border blue green red purple cyan gold silver black