The Iliads of Homer / Translated according to the Greek

by Homer

THE ILIADS OF HOMER

THE EPISTLE DEDICATORY

TO THE IMMORTAL MEMORY OF THE INCOMPARABLE HEROE, HENRY, PRINCE OF WALES.

Thy tomb, arms, statue, all things fit to fall
At foot of Death, and worship funeral,
Form hath bestow’d; for form is nought too dear.
Thy solid virtues yet, eterniz’d here,
My blood and wasted spirits have only found
Commanded cost, and broke so rich a ground,
Not to inter, but make thee ever spring,
As arms, tombs, statues, ev’ry earthy thing,
Shall fade aid vanish into fume before.
What lasts thrives least; yet wealth of soul is poor,
And so ’tis kept. Not thy thrice-sacred will,
Sign’d with thy death, moves any to fulfil
Thy just bequests to me. Thou dead, then I
Live dead, for giving thee eternity.

Ad Famam.

To all times future this time’s mark extend,
Homer no patron found, nor Chapman friend.
Ignotus nimis omnibus,
Sat notus moritur sibi.

TO THE HIGH BORN PRINCE OF MEN,
HENRY, THRICE ROYAL INHERITOR TO THE UNITED KINGDOMS OF GREAT BRITAIN, ETC.

Since perfect happiness, by Princes sought,
Is not with birth born, nor exchequers bought,
Nor follows in great trains, nor is possest
With any outward state, but makes him blest
That governs inward, and beholdeth there
All his affections stand about him bare,
That by his pow’r can send to Tower and death
All traitorous passions, marshalling beneath
His justice his mere will, and in his mind
Holds such a sceptre as can keep confin’d
His whole life’s actions in the royal bounds
Of virtue and religion, and their grounds
Takes in to sow his honours, his delights,
And cómplete empire; you should learn these rights,
Great Prince of men, by princely precedents,
Which here, in all kinds, my true zeal presents
To furnish your youth’s groundwork and first state,
And let you see one godlike man create
All sorts of worthiest men, to be contriv’d
In your worth only, giving him reviv’d
For whose life Alexander would have giv’n
One of his kingdoms; who (as sent from heav’n,
And thinking well that so divine a creature
Would never more enrich the race of nature)
Kept as his crown his works, and thought them still
His angels, in all pow’r to rule his will;
And would affirm that Homer’s poesy
Did more advance his Asian victory,
Than all his armies. O! ’tis wond’rous much,
Though nothing priz’d, that the right virtuous touch
Of a well-written soul to virtue moves;
Nor have we souls to purpose, if their loves
Of fitting objects be not so inflam’d.
How much then were this kingdom’s main soul maim’d,
To want this great inflamer of all pow’rs
That move in human souls! All realms but yours
Are honour’d with him, and hold blest that state
That have his works to read and contemplate:
In which humanity to her height is rais’d,
Which all the world, yet none enough, hath prais’d;
Seas, earth, and heav’n, he did in verse comprise,
Out-sung the Muses, and did equalize
Their king Apollo; being so far from cause
Of Princes’ light thoughts, that their gravest laws
May find stuff to be fashion’d by his lines.
Through all the pomp of kingdoms still he shines,
And graceth all his gracers. Then let lie
Your lutes and viols, and more loftily
Make the heroics of your Homer sung,
To drums and trumpets set his angel’s tongue,
And, with the princely sport of hawks you use,
Behold the kingly flight of his high muse,
And see how, like the phœnix, she renews
Her age and starry feathers in your sun,
Thousands of years attending ev’ry one
Blowing the holy fire, and throwing in
Their seasons, kingdoms, nations, that have been
Subverted in them; laws, religions, all
Offer’d to change and greedy funeral;
Yet still your Homer, lasting, living, reigning,
And proves how firm truth builds in poet’s feigning.

A prince’s statue, or in marble carv’d,
Or steel, or gold, and shrin’d, to be preserv’d,
Aloft on pillars or pyramides,
Time into lowest ruins may depress;
But drawn with all his virtues in learn’d verse,
Fame shall resound them on oblivion’s hearse,
Till graves gasp with her blasts, and dead men rise.
No gold can follow where true Poesy flies.

Then let not this divinity in earth,
Dear Prince, be slighted as she were the birth
Of idle fancy, since she works so high;
Nor let her poor disposer, Learning, lie
Still bed-rid. Both which being in men defac’d,
In men with them is God’s bright image ras’d;
For as the Sun and Moon are figures giv’n
Of his refulgent Deity in heav’n,
So Learning, and, her light’ner, Poesy,
In earth present His fiery Majesty.
Nor are kings like Him, since their diadems
Thunder and lighten and project brave beams,
But since they His clear virtues emulate,
In truth and justice imaging His state,
In bounty and humanity since they shine,
Than which is nothing like Him more divine;
Not fire, not light, the sun’s admiréd course,
The rise nor set of stars, nor all their force
In us and all this cope beneath the sky,
Nor great existence, term’d His treasury;
Since not for being greatest He is blest,
But being just, and in all virtues best.

What sets His justice and His truth best forth,
Best Prince, then use best, which is Poesy’s worth;
For, as great princes, well inform’d and deck’d
With gracious virtue, give more sure effect
To her persuasions, pleasures, real worth,
Than all th’ inferior subjects she sets forth;
Since there she shines at full, hath birth, wealth, state,
Pow’r, fortune, honour, fit to elevate
Her heav’nly merits, and so fit they are,
Since she was made for them, and they for her;
So Truth, with Poesy grac’d, is fairer far,
More proper, moving, chaste, and regular,
Than when she runs away with untruss’d Prose;
Proportion, that doth orderly dispose
Her virtuous treasure, and is queen of graces;
In Poesy decking her with choicest phrases,
Figures and numbers; when loose Prose puts on
Plain letter-habits makes her trot upon
Dull earthly business, she being mere divine;
Holds her to homely cates and harsh hedge-wine,
That should drink Poesy’s nectar; ev’ry way
One made for other, as the sun and day,
Princes and virtues. And, as in spring,
The pliant water mov’d with anything
Let fall into it, puts her motion out
In perfect circles, that move round about
The gentle fountain, one another raising;
So Truth and Poesy work; so Poesy, blazing
All subjects fall’n in her exhaustless fount,
Works most exactly, makes a true account
Of all things to her high discharges giv’n,
Till all be circular and round as heav’n.

And lastly, great Prince, mark and pardon me:—
As in a flourishing and ripe fruit-tree,
Nature hath made the bark to save the bole,
The bole the sap, the sap to deck the whole
With leaves and branches, they to bear and shield
The useful fruit, the fruit itself to yield
Guard to the kernel, and for that all those,
Since out of that again the whole tree grows;
So in our tree of man, whose nervy root
Springs in his top, from thence ev’n to his foot
There runs a mutual aid through all his parts,
All join’d in one to serve his queen of arts,[1]
In which doth Poesy like the kernel lie
Obscur’d, though her Promethean faculty
Can create men and make ev’n death to live,
For which she should live honour’d, kings should give
Comfort and help to her that she might still
Hold up their spirits in virtue, make the will
That governs in them to the pow’r conform’d,
The pow’r to justice, that the scandals, storm’d
Against the poor dame, clear’d by your fair grace,
Your grace may shine the clearer. Her low place,
Not showing her, the highest leaves obscure.
Who raise her raise themselves, and he sits sure
Whom her wing’d hand advanceth, since on it
Eternity doth, crowning virtue, sit.
All whose poor seed, like violets in their beds,
Now grow with bosom-hung and hidden heads;
For whom I must speak, though their fate convinces
Me worst of poets, to you best of princes.
By the most humble and faithful implorer for all
the graces to your highness eternized
by your divine Homer.
Geo. Chapman.

[1] Queen of arts—the soul.

TO THE SACRED FOUNTAIN OF PRINCES, SOLE EMPRESS OF BEAUTY AND VIRTUE, ANNE, QUEEN OF ENGLAND, ETC.

With whatsoever honour we adorn
Your royal issue, we must gratulate you,
Imperial Sovereign; who of you is born
Is you, one tree make both the bole and bow.
If it be honour then to join you both
To such a pow’rful work as shall defend
Both from foul death and age’s ugly moth,
This is an honour that shall never end.
They know not virtue then, that know not what
The virtue of defending virtue is;
It comprehends the guard of all your State,
And joins your greatness to as great a bliss.
Shield virtue and advance her then, great Queen,
And make this book your glass to make it seen.
Your Majesty’s in all subjection most
humbly consecrate,
GEO. CHAPMAN.

TO THE READER

Lest with foul hands you touch these holy rites,
And with prejudicacies too profane,
Pass Homer in your other poets’ slights,
Wash here. In this porch to his num’rous fane,
Hear ancient oracles speak, and tell you whom
You have to censure. First then Silius hear,
Who thrice was consul in renowned Rome,
Whose verse, saith Martial, nothing shall out-wear.

SILIUS ITALICUS, LIB. XIII. 777

He, in Elysium having cast his eye
Upon the figure of a youth, whose hair,
With purple ribands braided curiously,
Hung on his shoulders wond’rous bright and fair,
Said: “Virgin, what is he whose heav’nly face
Shines past all others, as the morn the night;
Whom many marvelling souls, from place to place,
Pursue and haunt with sounds of such delight;
Whose count’nance (were’t not in the Stygian shade)
Would make me, questionless, believe he were
A very God?” The learned virgin made
This answer: “If thou shouldst believe it here,
Thou shouldst not err. He well deserv’d to be
Esteem’d a God; nor held his so-much breast
A little presence of the Deity,
His verse compris’d earth, seas, stars, souls at rest;
In song the Muses he did equalize,
In honour Phœbus. He was only soul,
Saw all things spher’d in nature, without eyes,
And rais’d your Troy up to the starry pole.”
Glad Scipio, viewing well this prince of ghosts,
Said: “O if Fates would give this poet leave
To sing the acts done by the Roman hosts,
How much beyond would future times receive
The same facts made by any other known!
O blest Æacides, to have the grace
That out of such a mouth thou shouldst be shown
To wond’ring nations, as enrich’d the race
Of all times future with what he did know!
Thy virtue with his verse shall ever grow.”

Now hear an Angel sing our poet’s fame,
Whom fate, for his divine song, gave that name.

ANGELUS POLITIANUS, IN NUTRICIA

More living than in old Demodocus,
Fame glories to wax young in Homer’s verse.
And as when bright Hyperion holds to us
His golden torch, we see the stars disperse,
And ev’ry way fly heav’n, the pallid moon
Ev’n almost vanishing before his sight;
So, with the dazzling beams of Homer’s sun,
All other ancient poets lose their light.
Whom when Apollo heard, out of his star,
Singing the godlike act of honour’d men,
And equalling the actual rage of war,
With only the divine strains of his pen,
He stood amaz’d and freely did confess
Himself was equall’d in Mæonides.

Next hear the grave and learned Pliny use
His censure of our sacred poet’s muse.

Plin. Nat. Hist. lib. 7. cap. 29.
Turned into verse, that no prose may come near Homer.

Whom shall we choose the glory of all wits,
Held through so many sorts of discipline
And such variety of works and spirits,
But Grecian Homer, like whom none did shine
For form of work and matter? And because
Our proud doom of him may stand justified
By noblest judgments, and receive applause
In spite of envy and illiterate pride,
Great Macedon, amongst his matchless spoils
Took from rich Persia, on his fortunes cast,
A casket finding, full of precious oils,
Form’d all of gold, with wealthy stones enchas’d,
He took the oils out, and his nearest friends
Ask’d in what better guard it might be us’d?
All giving their conceits to sev’ral ends,
He answer’d: “His affections rather choos’d
An use quite opposite to all their kinds,
And Homer’s books should with that guard be serv’d,
That the most precious work of all men’s minds
In the most precious place might be preserv’d.
The Fount of Wit was Homer, Learning’s Sire,
And gave antiquity her living fire.”

Volumes of like praise I could heap on this,
Of men more ancient and more learn’d than these,
But since true virtue enough lovely is
With her own beauties, all the suffrages
Of others I omit, and would more fain
That Homer for himself should be belov’d,
Who ev’ry sort of love-worth did contain.
Which how I have in my conversion prov’d
I must confess I hardly dare refer
To reading judgments, since, so gen’rally,
Custom hath made ev’n th’ ablest agents err[2]
In these translations; all so much apply
Their pains and cunnings word for word to render
Their patient authors, when they may as well
Make fish with fowl, camels with whales, engender,
Or their tongues’ speech in other mouths compell.
For, ev’n as diff’rent a production
Ask Greek and English, since as they in sounds
And letters shun one form and unison;
So have their sense and elegancy bounds
In their distinguish’d natures, and require
Only a judgment to make both consent
In sense and elocution; and aspire,
As well to reach the spirit that was spent
In his example, as with art to pierce
His grammar, and etymology of words.
But as great clerks can write no English verse,[3]
Because, alas, great clerks! English affords,
Say they, no height nor copy; a rude tongue,
Since ’tis their native; but in Greek or Latin
Their writs are rare, for thence true Poesy sprung;
Though them (truth knows) they have but skill to chat in,
Compar’d with that they might say in their own;
Since thither th’ other’s full soul cannot make
The ample transmigration to be shown
In nature-loving Poesy; so the brake
That those translators stick in, that affect
Their word-for-word traductions (where they lose
The free grace of their natural dialect,
And shame their authors with a forcéd gloss)
I laugh to see; and yet as much abhor[4]
More license from the words than may express
Their full compression, and make clear the author;
From whose truth, if you think my feet digress,
Because I use needful periphrases,
Read Valla, Hessus, that in Latin prose,
And verse, convert him; read the Messines
That into Tuscan turns him; and the gloss
Grave Salel makes in French, as he translates;
Which, for th’ aforesaid reasons, all must do;
And see that my conversion much abates
The license they take, and more shows him too,
Whose right not all those great learn’d men have done,
In some main parts, that were his commentors.
But, as the illustration of the sun
Should be attempted by the erring stars,
They fail’d to search his deep and treasurous heart;
The cause was, since they wanted the fit key
Of Nature, in their downright strength of Art.[5]
With Poesy to open Poesy:
Which, in my poem of the mysteries
Reveal’d in Homer, I will clearly prove;
Till whose near birth, suspend your calumnies,
And far-wide imputations of self-love.
’Tis further from me than the worst that reads,
Professing me the worst of all that write;
Yet what, in following one that bravely leads,
The worst may show, let this proof hold the light.
But grant it clear; yet hath detraction got
My blind side in the form my verse puts on;
Much like a dung-hill mastiff, that dares not
Assault the man he barks at, but the stone
He throws at him takes in his eager jaws,
And spoils his teeth because they cannot spoil.
The long verse hath by proof receiv’d applause
Beyond each other number; and the foil,
That squint-ey’d Envy takes, is censur’d plain;
For this long poem asks this length of verse,
Which I myself ingenuously maintain
Too long our shorter authors to rehearse.
And, for our tongue that still is so impair’d[6]
By travelling linguists, I can prove it clear,
That no tongue hath the Muse’s utt’rance heir’d
For verse, and that sweet music to the ear
Strook out of rhyme, so naturally as this;
Our monosyllables so kindly fall,
And meet oppos’d in rhyme as they did kiss;
French and Italian most immetrical,
Their many syllables in harsh collision
Fall as they break their necks; their bastard rhymes
Saluting as they justled in transition,
And set our teeth on edge; nor tunes, nor times
Kept in their falls; and, methinks, their long words
Shew in short verse as in a narrow place
Two opposites should meet with two-hand swords
Unwieldily, without or use or grace.
Thus having rid the rubs, and strow’d these flow’rs
In our thrice-sacred Homer’s English way,
What rests to make him yet more worthy yours?
To cite more praise of him were mere delay
To your glad searches for what those men found
That gave his praise, past all, so high a place;
Whose virtues were so many, and so crown’d
By all consents divine, that, not to grace
Or add increase to them, the world doth need
Another Homer, but ev’n to rehearse
And number them, they did so much exceed.
Men thought him not a man; but that his verse
Some mere celestial nature did adorn;
And all may well conclude it could not be,
That for the place where any man was born,
So long and mortally could disagree
So many nations as for Homer striv’d,
Unless his spur in them had been divine.
Then end their strife and love him, thus receiv’d,
As born in England; see him over-shine
All other-country poets; and trust this,
That whosesoever Muse dares use her wing
When his Muse flies, she will be truss’d by his,
And show as if a bernacle should spring
Beneath an eagle. In none since was seen
A soul so full of heav’n as earth’s in him.
O! if our modern Poesy had been
As lovely as the lady he did limn,
What barbarous worldling, grovelling after gain,
Could use her lovely parts with such rude hate,
As now she suffers under ev’ry swain?
Since then ’tis nought but her abuse and Fate,
That thus impairs her, what is this to her
As she is real, or in natural right?
But since in true Religion men should err
As much as Poesy, should the abuse excite
The like contempt of her divinity,
And that her truth, and right saint-sacred merits,
In most lives breed but rev’rence formally,
What wonder is’t if Poesy inherits
Much less observance, being but agent for her,
And singer of her laws, that others say?
Forth then, ye moles, sons of the earth, abhor her,
Keep still on in the dirty vulgar way,
Till dirt receive your souls, to which ye vow,
And with your poison’d spirits bewitch our thrifts.
Ye cannot so despise us as we you;
Not one of you above his mole-hill lifts
His earthy mind, but, as a sort of beasts,
Kept by their guardians, never care to hear
Their manly voices, but when in their fists
They breathe wild whistles, and the beasts’ rude ear
Hears their curs barking, then by heaps they fly
Headlong together; so men, beastly giv’n,
The manly soul’s voice, sacred Poesy,
Whose hymns the angels ever sing in heav’n,
Contemn and hear not; but when brutish noises,
For gain, lust, honour, in litigious prose
Are bellow’d out, and crack the barbarous voices
Of Turkish stentors, O, ye lean to those,
Like itching horse to blocks or high may-poles;
And break nought but the wind of wealth, wealth, all
In all your documents; your asinine souls,
Proud of their burthens, feel not how they gall.
But as an ass, that in a field of weeds
Affects a thistle, and falls fiercely to it,
That pricks and galls him, yet he feeds, and bleeds,
Forbears a while, and licks, but cannot woo it
To leave the sharpness; when, to wreak his smart,
He beats it with his foot, then backward kicks,
Because the thistle gall’d his forward part;
Nor leaves till all be eat, for all the pricks,
Then falls to others with as hot a strife,
And in that honourable war doth waste
The tall heat of his stomach, and his life;
So in this world of weeds you worldlings taste
Your most-lov’d dainties, with such war buy peace,
Hunger for torment, virtue kick for vice,
Cares for your states do with your states increase,
And though ye dream ye feast in Paradise,
Yet reason’s daylight shews ye at your meat
Asses at thistles, bleeding as ye eat.

THE PREFACE TO THE READER

Of all books extant in all kinds, Homer is the first and best. No one before his, Josephus affirms; nor before him, saith Velleius Paterculus, was there any whom he imitated, nor after him any that could imitate him. And that Poesy may be no cause of detraction from all the eminence we give him, Spondanus (preferring it to all arts and sciences) unanswerably argues and proves; for to the glory of God, and the singing of his glories, no man dares deny, man was chiefly made. And what art performs this chief end of man with so much excitation and expression as Poesy; Moses, David, Solomon, Job, Esay, Jeremy, etc. chiefly using that to the end abovesaid? And since the excellence of it cannot be obtained by the labour and art of man, as all easily confess it, it must needs be acknowledged a Divine infusion. To prove which in a word, this distich, in my estimation, serves something nearly:

Great Poesy, blind Homer, makes all see
Thee capable of all arts, none of thee.

For out of him, according to our most grave and judicial Plutarch, are all Arts deduced, confirmed, or illustrated. It is not therefore the world’s vilifying of it that can make it vile; for so we might argue, and blaspheme the most incomparably sacred. It is not of the world indeed, but, like truth, hides itself from it. Nor is there any such reality of wisdom’s truth in all human excellence, as in Poets’ fictions. That most vulgar and foolish receipt of poetical licence being of all knowing men to be exploded, accepting it, as if Poets had a tale-telling privilege above others, no Artist being so strictly and inextricably confined to all the laws of learning, wisdom, and truth, as a Poet. For were not his fictions composed of the sinews and souls of all those, how could they defy fire, iron, and be combined with eternity? To all sciences therefore, I must still, with our learned and ingenious Spondanus, refer it, as having a perpetual commerce with the Divine Majesty, embracing and illustrating all His most holy precepts, and enjoying continual discourse with His thrice perfect and most comfortable Spirit. And as the contemplative life is most worthily and divinely preferred by Plato to the active, as much as the head to the foot, the eye to the hand, reason to sense, the soul to the body, the end itself to all things directed to the end, quiet to motion, and eternity to time; so much prefer I divine Poesy to all worldly wisdom. To the only shadow of whose worth, yet, I entitle not the bold rhymes of every apish and impudent braggart, though he dares assume anything; such I turn over to the weaving of cobwebs, and shall but chatter on molehills (far under the hill of the Muses) when their fortunatest self-love and ambition hath advanced them highest. Poesy is the flower of the Sun, and disdains to open to the eye of a candle. So kings hide their treasures and counsels from the vulgar, ne evilescant (saith our Spond.). We have example sacred enough, that true Poesy’s humility, poverty, and contempt, are badges of divinity, not vanity. Bray then, and bark against it, ye wolf-faced worldlings, that nothing but honours, riches, and magistracy, nescio quos turgidè spiratis (that I may use the words of our friend still) qui solas leges Justinianas crepatis; paragraphum unum aut alterum, pluris quàm vos ipsos facitis, etc. I (for my part) shall ever esteem it much more manly and sacred, in this harmless and pious study, to sit till I sink into my grave, than shine in your vainglorious bubbles and impieties; all your poor policies, wisdoms, and their trappings, at no more valuing than a musty nut. And much less I weigh the frontless detractions of some stupid ignorants, that, no more knowing me than their own beastly ends, and I ever (to my knowledge) blest from their sight, whisper behind me vilifyings of my translation, out of the French affirming them, when both in French, and all other languages but his own, our with-all-skill-enriched Poet is so poor and unpleasing that no man can discern from whence flowed his so generally given eminence and admiration. And therefore (by any reasonable creature’s conference of my slight comment and conversion) it will easily appear how I shun them, and whether the original be my rule or not. In which he shall easily see, I understand the understandings of all other interpreters and commentors in places of his most depth, importance, and rapture. In whose exposition and illustration, if I abhor from the sense that others wrest and wrack out of him, let my best detractor examine how the Greek word warrants me. For my other fresh fry, let them fry in their foolish galls, nothing so much weighed as the barkings of the puppies, or foisting hounds, too vile to think of our sacred Homer, or set their profane feet within their lives’ length of his thresholds. If I fail in something, let my full performance in other some restore me; haste spurring me on with other necessities. For as at my conclusion I protest, so here at my entrance, less than fifteen weeks was the time in which all the last twelve books were entirely new translated. No conference had with anyone living in all the novelties I presume I have found. Only some one or two places I have showed to my worthy and most learned friend, M. Harriots, for his censure how much mine own weighed; whose judgment and knowledge in all kinds, I know to be incomparable and bottomless, yea, to be admired as much, as his most blameless life, and the right sacred expense of his time, is to be honoured and reverenced. Which affirmation of his clear unmatchedness in all manner of learning I make in contempt of that nasty objection often thrust upon me,—that he that will judge must know more than he of whom he judgeth; for so a man should know neither God nor himself. Another right learned, honest, and entirely loved friend of mine, M. Robert Hews, I must needs put into my confess’d conference touching Homer, though very little more than that I had with M. Harriots. Which two, I protest, are all, and preferred to all. Nor charge I their authorities with, any allowance of my general labour, but only of those one or two places, which for instances of my innovation, and how it showed to them, I imparted. If any tax me for too much periphrasis or circumlocution in some places, let them read Laurentius Valla, and Eobanus Hessus, who either use such shortness as cometh nothing home to Homer, or, where they shun that fault, are ten parts more paraphrastical than I. As for example, one place I will trouble you (if you please) to confer with the original, and one interpreter for all. It is in the end of the third book, and is Helen’s speech to Venus fetching her to Paris from seeing his cowardly combat with Menelaus; part of which speech I will here cite:

Οὕνεκα δὴ νυ̑ν δι̑ον ᾽Αλέξανδρον Μενέλαος
Νικήσας, &c.

For avoiding the common reader’s trouble here, I must refer the more Greekish to the rest of the speech in Homer, whose translation ad verbum by Spondanus I will here cite, and then pray you to confer it with that which followeth of Valla.

Quoniam verò nunc Alexandrum Menelaus
Postquam vicit, vult odiosam me domum abducere,
Propterea verò nunc dolum (seu dolos) cogitans advenisti?
Sede apud ipsum vadens, deorum abnega vias,
Neque unquam tuis pedibus revertaris in cœlum,
Sed semper circa eum ærumnas perfer, et ipsum serva
Donec te vel uxorem faciat, vel hic servam, etc.

Valla thus:

Quoniam victo Paride, Menelaus me miseram est reportaturus ad lares, ideo tu, ideo falsâ sub imagine venisti, ut me deciperes ob tuam nimiam in Paridem benevolentiam: eò dum illi ades, dum illi studes, dum pro illo satagis, dum illum observas atque custodis, deorum commercium reliquisti, nec ad eos reversura es ampliùs: adeò (quantum suspicor) aut uxor ejus efficieris, aut ancilla, &c.

Wherein note if there be any such thing as most of this in Homer; yet only to express, as he thinks, Homer’s conceit, for the more pleasure of the reader, he useth this overplus, dum illi ades, dum illi studes, dum pro illo satagis, dum ilium observas, atque custodis, deorum commercium reliquisti. Which (besides his superfluity) is utterly false. For where he saith reliquisti deorum commercium, Helen saith, θεω̑ν δ᾽ἀπόειπε κελεύθους, deorum auten abnega or abnue, vias, ἀπείπειν (vel ἀποείπειν as it is used poetically) signifying denegare or aonuere; and Helen (in contempt of her too much observing men) bids her renounce heaven, and come live with Paris till he make her his wife or servant; scoptically or scornfully speaking it; which both Valla, Eobanus, and all other interpreters (but these ad verbum) have utterly missed. And this one example I thought necessary to insert here, to show my detractors that they have no reason to vilify my circumlocution sometimes, when their most approved Grecians, Homer’s interpreters generally, hold him fit to be so converted. Yet how much I differ, and with what authority, let my impartial and judicial reader judge. Always conceiving how pedantical and absurd an affectation it is in the interpretation of any author (much more of Homer) to turn him word for word, when according to Horace and other best lawgivers to translators) it is the part of every knowing and judicial interpreter, not to follow the number and order of words, but the material things themselves, and sentences to weigh diligently, and to clothe and adorn them with words, and such a style and form of oration, as are most apt for the language in which they are converted. If I have not turned him ill any place falsely (as all other his interpreters have in many, and most of his chief places) if I have not left behind me any of his sentences, elegancy, height, intention, and invention, if in some few places (especially in my first edition, being done so long since, and following the common tract) I be something paraphrastical and faulty, is it justice in that poor fault (if they will needs have it so) to drown all the rest of my labour? But there is a certain envious windsucker, that hovers up and down, laboriously engrossing all the air with his luxurious ambition, and buzzing into every ear my detraction, affirming I turn Homer out of the Latin only, etc. that sets all his associates, and the whole rabble of my maligners on their wings with him, to bear about my impair, and poison my reputation. One that, as he thinks, whatsoever he gives to others, he takes from himself; so whatsoever he takes from others, he adds to himself. One that in this kind of robbery doth like Mercury, that stole good and supplied it with counterfeit bad still. One like the two gluttons, Philoxenus and Gnatho, that would still empty their noses in the dishes they loved, that no man might eat but themselves. For so this castrill, with too hot a liver, and lust after his own glory, and to devour all himself, discourageth all appetites to the fame of another. I have stricken, single him as you can. Nor note I this, to cast any rubs or plashes out of the particular way of mine own estimation with the world; for I resolve this with the wilfully obscure:

Sine honore vivam, nulloque numero ero.

Without men’s honours I will live, and make
No number in the manless course they take.

But, to discourage (if it might be) the general detraction of industrious and well-meaning virtue, I know I cannot too much diminish and deject myself; yet that passing little that I am, God only knows, to Whose ever-implored respect and comfort I only submit me. If any further edition of these my silly endeavours shall chance, I will mend what is amiss (God assisting me) and amplify my harsh Comment to Homer’s far more right, and mine own earnest and ingenious love of him. Notwithstanding, I know, the curious and envious will never sit down satisfied. A man may go over and over, till he come over and over, and his pains be only his recompense, every man is so loaded with his particular head, and nothing in all respects perfect, but what is perceived by few. Homer himself hath met with my fortune, in many maligners; and therefore may my poor self put up without motion. And so little I will respect malignity, and so much encourage myself with mine own known strength, and what I find within me of comfort and confirmance (examining myself throughout with a far more jealous and severe eye than my greatest enemy, imitating this:

Judex ipse sui totum se explorat ad unguem, &c.)

that after these Iliads, I will (God lending me life and any meanest means) with more labour than I have lost here, and all unchecked alacrity, dive through his Odysseys. Nor can I forget here (but with all hearty gratitude remember) my most ancient, learned, and right noble friend, M. Richard Stapilton, first most desertful mover in the frame of our Homer. For which (and much other most ingenious and utterly undeserved desert) God make me amply his requiter; and be his honourable family’s speedy and full restorer. In the mean space, I entreat my impartial and judicial Reader, that all things to the quick he will not pare, but humanely and nobly pardon defects, and, if he find anything perfect, receive it unenvied.

OF HOMER

Of his country and time, the difference is so infinite amongst all writers, that there is no question, in my conjecture, of his antiquity beyond all. To which opinion, the nearest I will cite, Adam Cedrenus placeth him under David’s and Solomon’s rule; and the Destruction of Troy under Saul’s. And of one age with Solomon, Michael Glycas Siculus affirmeth him. Aristotle (in tertio de Poeticâ) affirms he was born in the isle of Io, begot of a Genius, one of them that used to dance with the Muses, and a virgin of that isle compressed by that Genius, who being quick with child (for shame of the deed) came into a place called Ægina, and there was taken of thieves, and brought to Smyrna, to Mæon king of the Lydians, who for her beauty married her. After which, she walking near the flood Meletes, on that shore being overtaken with the throes of her delivery, she brought forth Homer, and instantly died. The infant was received by Mæon, and brought up as his own till his death, which was not long after. And, according to this, when the Lydians in Smyrna were afflicted by the Æolians, and thought fit to leave the city, the captains by a herald willing all to go out that would, and follow them, Homer, being a little child, said he would also ὁμηρει̑ν (that is, sequi); and of that, for Melesigenes, which was his first name, he was called Homer. These Plutarch.

The varieties of other reports touching this I omit for length; and in place thereof think it not unfit to insert something of his praise and honour amongst the greatest of all ages; not that our most absolute of himself needs it, but that such authentical testimonies of his splendour and excellence may the better convince the malice of his maligners.

First, what kind of person Homer was, saith Spondanus, his statue teacheth, which Cedrenus describeth. The whole place we will describe that our relation may hold the better coherence, as Xylander converts it. “Then was the Octagonon at Constantinople consumed with fire; and the bath of Severus, that bore the name of Zeuxippus, in which there was much variety of spectacle, and splendour of arts; the works of all ages being conferred and preserved there, of marble, rocks, stones, and images of brass; to which this only wanted, that the souls of the persons they presented were not in them. Amongst these master-pieces and all-wit-exceeding workmanships stood Homer, as he was in his age, thoughtful and musing, his hands folded beneath his bosom, his beard untrimm’d and hanging down, the hair of his head in like sort thin on both sides before, his face with age and cares of the world, as these imagine, wrinkled and austere, his nose proportioned to his other parts, his eyes fixed or turned up to his eyebrows, like one blind, as it is reported he was.” (Not born blind, saith Vell. Paterculus, which he that imagines, saith he, is blind of all senses.) “Upon his under-coat he was attired with a loose robe, and at the base beneath his feet a brazen chain hung.” This was the statue of Homer, which in that conflagration perished. Another renowned statue of his, saith Lucian in his Encomion of Demosthenes, stood in the temple of Ptolemy, on the upper hand of his own statue. Cedrenus likewise remembereth a library in the palace of the king, at Constantinople, that contained a thousand a hundred and twenty books, amongst which there was the gut of a dragon of an hundred and twenty foot long, in which, in letters of gold, the Iliads and Odysseys of Homer were inscribed; which miracle, in Basiliscus the Emperor’s time, was consumed with fire.

For his respect amongst the most learned, Plato in Ione calleth him ἄριστον καὶ θειότατον τω̑ν ποιητω̑ν, Poeta rum omnium et præstantissimum et divinissimum; in Phædone, θει̑ον ποιητὴν, divinum Poetam; and in Theætetus, Socrates citing divers of the most wise and learned for confirmation of his there held opinion, as Protagoras, Heraclitus, Empedocles, Epicharmus, and Homer, who, saith Socrates, against such an army, being all led by such a captain as Homer, dares fight or resist, but he will be held ridiculous? This for Scaliger and all Homer’s envious and ignorant detractors. Why therefore Plato in another place banisheth him with all other poets out of his Commonwealth, dealing with them like a Politician indeed, use men, and then cast them off, though Homer he thinks fit to send out crowned and anointed, I see not, since he maketh still such honourable mention of him, and with his verses, as with precious gems, everywhere enchaceth his writings. So Aristotle continually celebrateth him. Nay, even amongst the barbarous, not only Homer’s name, but his poems have been recorded and reverenced. The Indians, saith Ælianus (Var. Hist. lib. xii. cap. 48) in their own tongue had Homer’s Poems translated and sung. Nor those Indians alone, but the kings of Persia. And amongst the Indians, of all the Greek poets, Homer being ever first in estimation; whensoever they used any divine duties according to the custom of their households and hospitalities, they invited ever Apollo and Homer. Lucian in his Encomion of Demosth. affirmeth all Poets celebrated Homer’s birthday, and sacrificed to him the first fruits of their verses. So Thersagoras answereth Lucian, he used to do himself. Alex. Paphius, saith Eustathius, delivers Homer as born of Egyptian parents, Dmasagoras being his father, and Æthra his mother, his nurse being a certain prophetess and the daughter of Oris, Isis’ priest, from whose breasts, oftentimes, honey flowed in the mouth of the infant. After which, in the night, he uttered nine several notes or voices of fowls, viz. of a swallow, a peacock, a dove, a crow, a partridge, a redshank, a stare, a blackbird, and a nightingale; and, being a little boy, was found playing in his bed with nine doves. Sibylla being at a feast of his parents was taken with sudden fury, and sung verses whose beginning was Δμασαγ όρα πολύνικε; polynice, signifying much victory, in which song also she called him μεγάκλεα, great in glory, and στεϕανίτην, signifying garland-seller, and commanded him to build a temple to the Pegridarij, that is, to the Muses. Herodotus affirms that Phæmius, teaching a public school at Smyrna, was his master; and Dionysius in his 56th Oration saith, Socrates was Homer’s scholar. In short, what he was, his works show most truly; to which, if you please, go on and examine him.

[2] Of Translation, and the natural difference of Dialects necessarily to be observed in it.

[3] Ironicè.

[4] The necessary nearness of Translation to the example.

[5] The power of Nature above Art in Poesy.

[6] Our English language above all others for Rhythmical Poesy.

THE FIRST BOOK OF HOMER’S ILIADS

THE ARGUMENT

Apollo’s priest to th’ Argive fleet doth bring
Gifts for his daughter, pris’ner to the king;
For which her tender’d freedom he entreats;
But, being dismiss’d with contumelious threats,
At Phœbus’ hands, by vengeful pray’r, he seeks
To have a plague inflicted on the Greeks.
Which had; Achilles doth a council cite,
Embold’ning Calchas, in the king’s despite;
To tell the truth why they were punish’d so.
From hence their fierce and deadly strife did grow.
For wrong in which Æacides so raves,
That goddess Thetis, from her throne of waves
Ascending heav’n, of Jove assistance won,
To plague the Greeks by absence of her son,
And make the general himself repent
To wrong so much his army’s ornament.
This found by Juno, she with Jove contends;
Till Vulcan, with heav’n’s cup, the quarrel ends.

ANOTHER ARGUMENT

Alpha the prayer of Chryses sings:
The army’s plague: the strife of kings.

Achilles’ baneful wrath resound, O Goddess, that impos’d
Infinite sorrows on the Greeks, and many brave souls los’d.
From breasts heroic; sent them far to that invisible cave
That no light comforts; and their limbs to dogs and vultures gave;
To all which Jove’s will gave effect; from whom first strife begun
Betwixt Atrides, king of men, and Thetis’ godlike son.
What god gave Eris their command, and op’d that fighting vein?
Jove’s and Latona’s son: who fir’d against the king of men,
For contumély shown his priest, infectious sickness sent
To plague the army, and to death by troops the soldiers went.
Occasion’d thus: Chryses, the priest, came to the fleet to buy,
For presents of unvalu’d price, his daughter’s liberty;
The golden sceptre and the crown of Phœbus in his hands
Proposing; and made suit to all, but most to the commands
Of both th’ Atrides, who most rul’d. “Great Atreus’ sons,” said he,
“And all ye well-greav’d Greeks, the gods, whose habitations be
In heav’nly houses, grace your pow’rs with Priam’s razéd town,
And grant ye happy conduct home! To win which wish’d renown
Of Jove, by honouring his son, far-shooting Phœbus, deign
For these fit presents to dissolve the ransomable chain
Of my lov’d daughter’s servitude.” The Greeks entirely gave
Glad acclamations, for sign that their desires would have
The grave priest reverenc’d, and his gifts of so much price embrac’d.
The Gen’ral yet bore no such mind, but viciously disgrac’d
With violent terms the priest, and said:—“Dotard! avoid our fleet,
Where ling’ring be not found by me; nor thy returning feet
Let ever visit us again; lest nor thy godhead’s crown,
Nor sceptre, save thee! Her thou seek’st I still will hold mine own,
Till age deflow’r her. In our court at Argos, far transferr’d
From her lov’d country, she shall ply her web, and see prepar’d[1]
With all fit ornaments my bed. Incense me then no more,
But, if thou wilt be safe, be gone.” This said, the sea-beat shore,
Obeying his high will, the priest trod off with haste and fear;
And, walking silent, till he left far off his enemies’ ear,
Phœbus, fair hair’d Latona’s son, he stirr’d up with a vow,
To this stern purpose: “Hear, thou God that bear’st the silver bow,
That Chrysa guard’st, rul’st Tenedos with strong hand, and the round
Of Cilia most divine dost walk! O Sminthëus! if crown’d
With thankful off’rings thy rich fane I ever saw, or fir’d
Fat thighs of oxen and of goats to thee, this grace desir’d
Vouchsafe to me: pains for my tears let these rude Greeks repay,
Forc’d with thy arrows.” Thus he pray’d, and Phœebus heard him pray,
And, vex’d at heart, down from the tops of steep heav’n stoop’d; his bow,
And quiver cover’d round, his hands did on his shoulders throw;
And of the angry Deity the arrows as he mov’d
Rattled about him. Like the night he rang’d the host, and rov’d
(Apart the fleet set) terribly; with his hard-loosing hand
His silver bow twang’d; and his shafts did first the mules command,
And swift hounds; then the Greeks themselves his deadly arrows shot.
The fires of death went never out; nine days his shafts flew hot
About the army; and the tenth, Achilles called a court
Of all the Greeks; heav’n’s white-arm’d Queen (who, ev’rywhere cut short,
Beholding her lov’d Greeks, by death) suggested it; and he
(All met in one) arose, and said: “Atrides, now I see
We must be wandering again, flight must be still our stay,
If flight can save us now, at once sickness and battle lay
Such strong hand on us. Let us ask some prophet, priest, or prove
Some dream-interpreter (for dreams are often sent from Jove)
Why Phœbus is so much incens’d; if unperformed vows
He blames in us, or hecatombs; and if these knees he bows
To death may yield his graves no more, but off’ring all supply
Of savours burnt from lambs and goats, avert his fervent eye,
And turn his temp’rate.” Thus, he sat; and then stood up to them
Calchas, surnam’d Thestorides, of augurs the supreme;
He knew things present, past, to come, and rul’d the equipage
Of th’ Argive fleet to Ilion, for his prophetic rage
Giv’n by Apollo; who, well-seen in th’ ill they felt, propos’d
This to Achilles: “Jove’s belov’d, would thy charge see disclos’d
The secret of Apollo’s wrath? then cov’nant and take oath
To my discov’ry, that, with words and pow’rful actions both,
Thy strength will guard the truth in me; because I well conceive
That he whose empire governs all, whom all the Grecians give
Confirm’d obedience, will be mov’d; and then you know the state
Of him that moves him. When a king hath once mark’d for his hate
A man inferior, though that day his wrath seems to digest
Th’ offence he takes, yet evermore he rakes up in his breast
Brands of quick anger, till revenge hath quench’d to his desire
The fire reservéd. Tell me, then, if, whatsoever ire
Suggests in hurt of me to him, thy valour will prevent?”
Achilles answer’d: “All thou know’st speak, and be confident;
For by Apollo, Jove’s belov’d, (to whom performing vows,
O Calchas, for the state of Greece, thy spirit prophetic shows
Skills that direct us) not a man of all these Grecians here,
I living, and enjoy’ng the light shot through this flow’ry sphere,
Shall touch thee with offensive hands; though Agamemnon be
The man in question, that doth boast the mightiest empery
Of all our army.” Then took heart the prophet unreprov’d,
And said: “They are not unpaid vows, nor hecatombs, that mov’d
The God against us; his offence is for his priest impair’d
By Agamemnon, that refus’d the present he preferr’d,
And kept his daughter. This is cause why heav’n’s Far-darter darts
These plagues amongst us; and this still will empty in our hearts
His deathful quiver, uncontain’d till to her lovéd sire
The black-eyed damsel be resign’d; no rédemptory hire
Took for her freedom,-not a gift, but all the ransom quit,
And she convey’d, with sacrifice, till her enfranchis’d feet
Tread Chrysa under; then the God, so pleas’d, perhaps we may
Move to remission.” Thus, he sate; and up, the great in sway,
Heroic Agamemnon rose, eagérly bearing all;
His mind’s seat overcast with fumes; an anger general
Fill’d all his faculties; his eyes sparkled like kindling fire,
Which sternly cast upon the priest, thus vented he his ire:
“Prophet of ill! for never good came from thee towards me
Not to a word’s worth; evermore thou took’st delight to be
Offensive in thy auguries, which thou continu’st still,
Now casting thy prophetic gall, and vouching all our ill,
Shot from Apollo, is impos’d since I refus’d the price
Of fair Chryseis’ liberty; which would in no worth rise
To my rate of herself, which moves my vows to have her home,
Past Clytemnestra loving her, that grac’d my nuptial room
With her virginity and flow’r. Nor ask her merits less
For person, disposition, wit, and skill in housewif’ries.
And yet, for all this, she shall go, if more conducible
That course be than her holding here. I rather wish the weal
Of my lov’d army than the death. Provide yet instantly
Supply for her, that I alone of all our royalty
Lose not my winnings. ’Tis not fit. Ye see all I lose mine
Forc’d by another, see as well some other may resign
His prise to me.” To this replied the swift-foot, god-like, son
Of Thetis, thus: “King of us all, in all ambition
Most covetous of all that breathe, why should the great-soul’d Greeks
Supply thy lost prise out of theirs? Nor what thy av’rice seeks
Our common treasury can find; so little it doth guard
Of what our ras’d towns yielded us; of all which most is shar’d,
And giv’n our soldiers; which again to take into our hands
Were ignominious and base. Now then, since God commands,
Part with thy most-lov’d prise to him; not any one of us
Exacts it of thee, yet we all, all loss thou suffer’st thus,
Will treble, quadruple, in gain, when Jupiter bestows
The sack of well-wall’d Troy on us; which by his word he owes.”
“Do not deceive yourself with wit,” he answer’d, “god-like man,
Though your good name may colour it; ’tis not your swift foot can
Outrun me here; nor shall the gloss, set on it with the God,
Persuade me to my wrong. Wouldst thou maintain in sure abode
Thine own prise, and slight me of mine? Resolve this: if our friends,
As fits in equity my worth, will right me with amends,
So rest it; otherwise, myself will enter personally
On thy prise, that of Ithacus, or Ajax, for supply;
Let him on whom I enter rage. But come, we’ll order these
Hereafter, and in other place. Now put to sacred seas
Our black sail; in it rowers put, in it fit sacrifice;
And to these I will make ascend my so much envied prise,
Bright-cheek’d Chryseis. For conduct of all which, we must choose
A chief out of our counsellors. Thy service we must use,
Idomenëus; Ajax, thine; or thine, wise Ithacus;
Or thine, thou terriblest of men, thou son of Peleüs,
Which fittest were, that thou might’st see these holy acts perform’d
For which thy cunning zeal so pleads; and he, whose bow thus storm’d
For our offences, may be calm’d.” Achilles, with a frown,
Thus answer’d: “O thou impudent! of no good but thine own
Ever respectful, but of that with all craft covetous,
With what heart can a man attempt a service dangerous,
Or at thy voice be spirited to fly upon a foe,
Thy mind thus wretched? For myself, I was not injur’d so
By any Trojan, that my pow’rs should bid them any blows;
In nothing bear they blame of me; Phthia, whose bosom flows
With corn and people, never felt impair of her increase
By their invasion; hills enow, and far-resounding seas,
Pour out their shades and deeps between; but thee, thou frontless man,
We follow, and thy triumphs make with bonfires of our bane;
Thine, and thy brother’s, vengeance sought, thou dog’s eyes, of this Troy
By our expos’d lives; whose deserts thou neither dost employ
With honour nor with care. And now, thou threat’st to force from me
The fruit of my sweat, which the Greeks gave all; and though it be,
Compar’d with thy part, then snatch’d up, nothing; nor ever is
At any sack’d town; but of fight, the fetcher in of this,
My hands have most share; in whose toils when I have emptied me
Of all my forces, my amends in liberality,
Though it be little, I accept, and turn pleas’d to my tent;
And yet that little thou esteem’st too great a continent
In thy incontinent avarice. For Phthia therefore now
My course is; since ’tis better far, than here t’ endure that thou
Should’st still be ravishing my right, draw my whole treasure dry,
And add dishonour.” He replied: “If thy heart serve thee, fly;
Stay not for my cause; others here will aid and honour me;
If not, yet Jove I know is sure; that counsellor is he
That I depend on. As for thee, of all our Jove-kept kings
Thou still art most my enemy; strifes, battles, bloody things,
Make thy blood-feasts still. But if strength, that these moods build upon,
Flow in thy nerves, God gave thee it; and so ’tis not thine own,
But in his hands still. What then lifts thy pride in this so high?
Home with thy fleet, and Myrmidons; use there their empery;
Command not here. I weigh thee not, nor mean to magnify
Thy rough-hewn rages, but, instead, I thus far threaten thee:
Since Phœbus needs will force from me Chryseis, she shall go;
My ships and friends shall waft her home; but I will imitate so
His pleasure, that mine own shall take, in person, from thy tent
Bright-cheek’d Briseis; and so tell thy strength how eminent
My pow’r is, being compar’d with thine; all other making fear
To vaunt equality with me, or in this proud kind bear
Their beards against me.” Thetis’ son at this stood vex’d, his heart
Bristled his bosom, and two ways drew his discursive part;
If, from his thigh his sharp sword drawn, he should make room about
Atrides’ person, slaught’ring him, or sit his anger out,
And curb his spirit. While these thoughts striv’d in his blood and mind,
And he his sword drew, down from heav’n Athenia stoop’d, and shin’d
About his temples, being sent by th’ ivory-wristed Queen,
Saturnia, who out of her heart had ever loving been,
And careful for the good of both. She stood behind, and took
Achilles by the yellow curls, and only gave her look
To him appearance; not a man of all the rest could see.
He turning back his eye, amaze strook every faculty;
Yet straight he knew her by her eyes, so terrible they were,
Sparkling with ardour, and thus spake: “Thou seed of Jupiter,
Why com’st thou? To behold his pride, that boasts our empery?
Then witness with it my revenge, and see that insolence die
That lives to wrong me.” She replied: “I come from heav’n to see
Thy anger settled, if thy soul will use her sov’reignty
In fit reflection. I am sent from Juno, whose affects
Stand heartily inclin’d to both. Come, give us both respects,
And cease contention; draw no sword; use words, and such as may
Be bitter to his pride, but just; for, trust in what I say,
A time shall come, when, thrice the worth of that he forceth now,
He shall propose for recompense of these wrongs; therefore throw
Reins on thy passions, and serve us.” He answer’d “Though my heart
Burn in just anger, yet my soul must conquer th’ angry part,
And yield you conquest. Who subdues his earthly part for heav’n,
Heav’n to his pray’rs subdues his wish.” This said, her charge was given
Fit honour; in his silver hilt he held his able hand,
And forc’d his broad sword up; and up to heav’n did re-ascend
Minerva, who, in Jove’s high roof that bears the rough shield, took
Her place with other deities. She gone, again forsook
Patience his passion, and no more his silence could confine
His wrath, that this broad language gave: “Thou ever steep’d in wine,
Dog’s face, with heart but of a hart, that nor in th’ open eye
Of fight dar’st thrust into a prease, nor with our noblest lie
In secret ambush! These works seem too full of death for thee;
’Tis safer far in the open host to dare an injury
To any crosser of thy lust. Thou subject-eating king!
Base spirits thou govern’st, or this wrong had been the last foul thing
Thou ever author’dst; yet I vow, and by a great oath swear,
Ev’n by this sceptre, that, as this never again shall bear[2]
Green leaves or branches, nor increase with any growth his size,
Nor did since first it left the hills, and had his faculties
And ornaments bereft with iron; which now to other end
Judges of Greece bear, and their laws, receiv’d from Jove, defend;
(For which my oath to thee is great); so, whensoever need
Shall burn with thirst of me thy host, no pray’rs shall ever breed
Affection in me to their aid, though well-deserved woes
Afflict thee for them, when to death man-slaught’ring Hector throws
Whole troops of them, and thou torment’st thy vex’d mind with conceit
Of thy rude rage now, and his wrong that most deserv’d the right
Of all thy army.” Thus, he threw his sceptre ’gainst the ground,
With golden studs stuck, and took seat. Atrides’ breast was drown’d
In rising choler. Up to both sweet-spoken Nestor stood,
The cunning Pylian orator, whose tongue pour’d forth a flood
Of more-than-honey-sweet discourse; two ages were increas’d
Of divers-languag’d men, all born in his time and deceas’d,
In sacred Pylos, where he reign’d amongst the third-ag’d men
He, well-seen in the world, advis’d, and thus express’d it then:
“O Gods! Our Greek earth will be drown’d in just tears; rapeful Troy,
Her king, and all his sons, will make as just a mock, and joy,
Of these disjunctions; if of you, that all our host excel
In counsel and in skill of fight, they hear this. Come, repel
These young men’s passions. Y’ are not both, put both your years in one,
So old as I. I liv’d long since, and was companion
With men superior to you both, who yet would ever hear
My counsels with respect. My eyes yet never witness were,
Nor ever will be, of such men as then delighted them;
Pirithous, Exadius, and god-like Polypheme,
Cæneus, and Dryas prince of men, Ægean Theseüs,
A man like heav’n’s immortals form’d; all, all most vigorous,
Of all men that ev’n those days: bred; most vig’rous men, and fought
With beasts most vig’rous, mountain beasts, (for men in strength were nought
Match’d with their forces) fought with them, and bravely fought them down
Yet ev’n with these men I convers’d, being call’d to the renown
Of their societies, by their suits, from Pylos far, to fight
In th’ Apian kingdom; and I fought, to a degree of might
That help’d ev’n their mights, against such as no man now would dare
To meet in conflict; yet ev’n these my counsels still would hear,
And with obedience crown my words. Give you such palm to them;
’Tis better than to wreath your wraths. Atrides, give not stream
To all thy pow’r, nor force his prise, but yield her still his own,
As all men else do. Nor do thou encounter with thy crown,
Great son of Peleus, since no king that ever Jove allow’d
Grace of a sceptre equals him. Suppose thy nerves endow’d
With strength superior, and thy birth a very goddess gave,
Yet he of force is mightier, since what his own nerves have
Is amplified with just command of many other. King of men,
Command thou then thyself; and I with my pray’rs will obtain
Grace of Achilles to subdue his fury; whose parts are
Worth our entreaty, being chief check to all our ill in war.”
“All this, good father,” said the king, “is comely and good right;
But this man breaks all such bounds; he affects, past all men, height;
All would in his pow’r hold, all make his subjects, give to all
His hot will for their temp’rate law; all which he never shall
Persuade at my hands. If the gods have giv’n him the great style
Of ablest soldier, made they that his licence to revile
Men with vile language?” Thetis’ son prevented him, and said:
“Fearful and vile I might be thought, if the exactions laid
By all means on me I should bear. Others command to this,
Thou shalt not me; or if thou dost, far my free spirit is
From serving thy command. Beside, this I affirm (afford
Impression of it in thy soul): will not use my sword
On thee or any for a wench, unjustly though thou tak’st
The thing thou gav’st; but all things else, that in my ship thou mak’st
Greedy survey of, do not touch without my leave; or do,—
Add that act’s wrong to this, that these may see that outrage too,—
And then comes my part; then be sure, thy blood upon my lance
Shall flow in vengeance.” These high terms these two at variance
Us’d to each other; left their seats; and after them arose
The whole court. To his tents and ships, with friends and soldiers, goes
Angry Achilles. Atreus’ son the swift ship launch’d, and put
Within it twenty chosen row’rs, within it likewise shut
The hecatomb t’ appease the God; then caus’d to come aboard
Fair-cheek’d Chryseis; for the chief, he in whom Pallas pour’d
Her store of counsels, Ithacus, aboard went last; and then
The moist ways of the sea they sail’d. And now the king of men
Bade all the host to sacrifice. They sacrific’d, and cast
The offal of all to the deeps; the angry God they grac’d
With perfect hecatombs; some bulls, some goats, along the shore
Of the unfruitful sea, inflam’d. To heav’n the thick fumes bore
Enwrapped savours. Thus, though all the politic king made shew
Respects to heav’n, yet he himself all that time did pursue
His own affections; the late jar, in which he thunder’d threats
Against Achilles, still he fed, and his affections’ heats
Thus vented to Talthybius, and grave Eurybates,
Heralds, and ministers of trust, to all his messages.
“Haste to Achilles’ tent; where take Briseis’ hand, and bring
Her beauties to us. If he fail to yield her, say your king
Will come himself, with multitudes that shall the horribler
Make both his presence, and your charge, that so he dares defer.”
This said, he sent them with a charge of hard condition.
They went unwillingly, and trod the fruitless sea’s shore; soon
They reach’d the navy and the tents, in which the quarter lay
Of all the Myrmidons, and found the chief Chief in their sway
Set at his black bark in his tent. Nor was Achilles glad
To see their presence; nor themselves in any glory had
Their message, but with rev’rence stood, and fear’d th’ offended king,
Ask’d not the dame, nor spake a word. He yet, well knowing the thing
That caus’d their coming, grac’d them thus: “Heralds, ye men that bear
The messages of men and gods, y’ are welcome, come ye near.
I nothing blame you, but your king; ’tis he I know doth send
You for Briseis; she is his. Patroclus, honour’d friend,
Bring forth the damsel, and these men let lead her to their lord.
But, heralds, be you witnesses, before the most ador’d,
Before us mortals, and before your most ungentle king,
Of what I suffer, that, if war ever hereafter bring
My aid in question, to avert any severest bane
It brings on others, I am ’scus’d to keep mine aid in wane,
Since they mine honour. But your king, in tempting mischief, raves,
Nor sees at once by present things the future; how like waves
Ills follow ills; injustices being never so secure
In present times, but after-plagues ev’n then are seen as sure;
Which yet he sees not, and so soothes his present lust, which, check’d,
Would check plagues future; and he might, in succouring right, protect
Such as fight for his right at fleet. They still in safety fight,
That fight still justly.” This speech us’d, Patroclus did the rite
His friend commanded, and brought forth Briseis from her tent,
Gave her the heralds, and away to th’ Achive ships they went.
She sad, and scarce for grief could go. Her love all friends forsook,
And wept for anger. To the shore of th’ old sea he betook
Himself alone, and casting forth upon the purple sea
His wet eyes, and his hands to heav’n advancing, this sad plea
Made to his mother; “Mother! Since you brought me forth to breathe
So short a life, Olympius had good right to bequeath
My short life honour; yet that right he doth in no degree,
But lets Atrides do me shame, and force that prise from me
That all the Greeks gave.” This with tears he utter’d, and she heard,
Set with her old sire in his deeps, and instantly appear’d
Up from the grey sea like a cloud, sate by his side, and said:
“Why weeps my son? What grieves thee?
Speak, conceal not what hath laid
Such hard hand on thee, let both know.” He, sighing like a storm,
Replied: “Thou dost know. Why should I things known again inform?
We march’d to Thebes, the sacred town of king Eëtion,
Sack’d it, and brought to fleet the spoil, which every valiant son
Of Greece indifferently shar’d. Atrides had for share
Fair-cheek’d Chryseis. After which, his priest that shoots so far,
Chryses, the fair Chryseis’ sire, arriv’d at th’ Achive fleet,
With infinite ransom, to redeem the dear imprison’d feet
Of his fair daughter. In his hands he held Apollo’s crown,
And golden sceptre; making suit to ev’ry Grecian son,
But most the sons of Atreüs, the others’ orderers,
Yet they least heard him; all the rest receiv’d with rev’rend ears
The motion, both the priest and gifts gracing, and holding worth
His wish’d acceptance. Atreus’ son yet (vex’d) commanded forth
With rude terms Phœbus’ rev’rend priest; who, angry, made retreat,
And pray’d to Phœbus, in whose grace he standing passing great
Got his petitión. The God an ill shaft sent abroad
That tumbled down the Greeks in heaps. The host had no abode
That was not visited. We ask’d a prophet that well knew
The cause of all; and from his lips Apollo’s prophecies flew,
Telling his anger. First myself exhorted to appease
The anger’d God; which Atreus’ son did at the heart displease,
And up he stood, us’d threats, perform’d. The black-eyed Greeks sent home
Chryseis to her sire, and gave his God a hecatomb.
Then, for Briseis, to my tents Atrides’ heralds came,
And took her that the Greeks gave all. If then thy pow’rs can frame
Wreak for thy son, afford it. Scale Olympus, and implore
Jove (if by either word, or fact, thou ever didst restore
Joy to his griev’d heart) now to help. I oft have heard thee vaunt,
In court of Peleus, that alone thy hand was conversant
In rescue from a cruel spoil the black-cloud-gath’ring Jove,
Whom other Godheads would have bound (the Pow’r whose pace doth move
The round earth, heav’n’s great Queen, and Pallas); to whose bands
Thou cam’st with rescue, bringing up him with the hundred hands
To great Olympus, whom the Gods call Briarëus, men
Ægæon, who his sire surpass’d, and was as strong again,
And in that grace sat glad by Jove. Th’ immortals stood dismay’d
At his ascension, and gave free passage to his aid.
Of all this tell Jove; kneel to him, embrace his knee, and pray,
If Troy’s aid he will ever deign, that now their forces may
Beat home the Greeks to fleet and sea; embruing their retreat
In slaughter; their pains pay’ng the wreak of their proud sov’reign’s heat;
And that far-ruling king may know, from his poor soldier’s harms
His own harm falls; his own and all in mine, his best in arms.”
Her answer she pour’d out in tears: “O me, my son,” said she,
“Why brought I up thy being at all, that brought thee forth to be
Sad subject of so hard a fate? O would to heav’n, that since
Thy fate is little, and not long, thou might’st without offence
And tears perform it! But to live, thrall to so stern a fate
As grants thee least life, and that least so most unfortunate,
Grieves me t’ have giv’n thee any life. But what thou wishest now,
If Jove will grant, I’ll up and ask; Olympus crown’d with snow
I’ll climb; but sit thou fast at fleet, renounce all war, and feed
Thy heart with wrath, and hope of wreak; till which come, thou shalt need
A little patience. Jupiter went yesterday to feast
Amongst the blameless Æthiops, in th’ ocean’s deepen’d breast,
All Gods attending him; the twelfth, high heav’n again he sees,
And then his brass-paved court I’ll scale, cling to his pow’rful knees,
And doubt not but to win thy wish.” Thus, made she her remove,
And left wrath tyring on her son, for his enforcèd love.
Ulysses, with the hecatomb, arriv’d at Chrysa’s shore;
And when amidst the hav’n’s deep mouth, they came to use the oar,
They straight strook sail, then roll’d them up, and on the hatches threw;
The top-mast to the kelsine then, with halyards down they drew;
Then brought the ship to port with oars; then forked anchor cast;
And, ’gainst the violence of storm, for drifting made her fast.
All come ashore, they all expos’d the holy hecatomb
To angry Phœbus, and, with it, Chryseis welcom’d home;
Whom to her sire, wise Ithacus, that did at th’ altar stand,
For honour led, and, spoken thus, resign’d her to his hand:
“Chryses, the mighty king of men, great Agamemnon, sends
Thy lov’d seed by my hands to thine; and to thy God commends
A hecatomb, which my charge is to sacrifice, and seek
Our much-sigh-mix’d woe his recure, invok’d by ev’ry Greek.”
Thus he resign’d her, and her sire receiv’d her highly joy’d.
About the well-built altar, then, they orderly employ’d
The sacred off’ring, wash’d their hands, took salt cakes; and the priest,
With hands held up to heav’n, thus pray’d: “O thou that all things seest,
Fautour of Chrysa, whose fair hand doth guard fully dispose
Celestial Cilia, governing in all pow’r Tenedos,
O hear thy priest, and as thy hand, in free grace to my pray’rs,
Shot fervent plague-shafts through the Greeks, now hearten their affairs
With health renew’d, and quite remove th’ infection from their blood.”
He pray’d; and to his pray’rs again the God propitious stood.
All, after pray’r, cast on salt cakes, drew back, kill’d, flay’d the beeves,
Cut out and dubb’d with fat their thighs, fair dress’d with doubled leaves,
And on them all the sweetbreads’ prick’d, The priest, with small sere wood,
Did sacrifice, pour’d on red wine; by whom the young men stood,
And turn’d, in five ranks, spits; on which (the legs enough) they eat
The inwards; then in giggots cut the other fit for meat,
And put to fire; which roasted well they drew. The labour done,
They serv’d the feast in, that fed all to satisfaction.
Desire of meat and wine thus quench’d, the youths crown’d cups of wine
Drunk off, and fill’d again to all. That day was held divine,
And spent in pæans to the Sun, who heard with pleaséd ear;
When whose bright chariot stoop’d to sea, and twilight hid the clear,
All soundly on their cables slept, ev’n till the night was worn.
And when the lady of the light, the rosy-finger’d Morn,
Rose from the hills, all fresh arose, and to the camp retir’d.
Apollo with a fore-right wind their swelling bark inspir’d.
The top-mast hoisted, milk-white sails on his round breast they put,
The mizens strooted with the gale, the ship her course did cut
So swiftly that the parted waves against her ribs did roar;
Which, coming to the camp, they drew aloft the sandy shore,
Where, laid on stocks, each soldier kept his quarter as before.
But Peleus’ son, swift-foot Achilles, at his swift ships sate,
Burning in wrath, nor ever came to councils of estate
That make men honour’d, never trod the fierce embattled field,
But kept close, and his lov’d heart pin’d, what fight and cries could yield
Thirsting at all parts to the host, And now, since first he told
His wrongs to Thetis, twelve fair morns their ensigns did unfold,
And then the ever-living gods mounted Olympus, Jove
First in ascension. Thetis then, remember’d well to move
Achilles’ motion, rose from sea, and, by the morn’s first light,
The great heav’n and Olympus climb’d; where, in supremest height
Of all that many-headed hill, she saw the far-seen son
Of Saturn, set from all the rest, in his free seat alone.
Before whom, on her own knees fall’n, the knees of Jupiter
Her left hand held, her right his chin, and thus she did prefer
Her son’s petition: “Father Jove! If ever I have stood
Aidful to thee in word or work, with this imploréd good,
Requite my aid, renown my son, since in so short a race
(Past others) thou confin’st his life. An insolent disgrace
Is done him by the king of men; he forc’d from him a prise
Won with his sword. But thou, O Jove, that art most strong, most wise,
Honour my son for my sake; add strength to the Trojans’ side
By his side’s weakness in his want; and see Troy amplified
In conquest, so much, and so long, till Greece may give again
The glory reft him, and the more illustrate the free reign
Of his wrong’d honour.” Jove at this sate silent; not a word
In long space pass’d him. Thetis still hung on his knee, implor’d
The second time his help, and said: “Grant, or deny my suit,
Be free in what thou dost; I know, thou canst not sit thus mute
For fear of any; speak, deny, that so I may be sure,
Of all heav’n’s Goddesses ’tis I, that only must endure
Dishonour by thee.” Jupiter, the great cloud-gath’rer, griev’d
With thought of what a world of griefs this suit ask’d, being achiev’d,
Swell’d, sigh’d, and answer’d: “Works of death thou urgest. O, at this
Juno will storm, and all my pow’rs inflame with contumelies.
Ever she wrangles, charging me in ear of all the Gods
That I am partial still, that I add the displeasing odds
Of my aid to the Ilians. Begone then, lest she see;
Leave thy request to my care; yet, that trust may hearten thee
With thy desire’s grant, and my pow’r to give it act approve
How vain her strife is, to thy pray’r my eminent head shall move;
Which is the great sign of my will with all th’ immortal states;
Irrevocable; never fails; never without the rates
Of all pow’rs else; when my head bows, all heads bow with it still
As their first mover; and gives pow’r to any work I will.”
He said; and his black eyebrows bent; above his deathless head
Th’ ambrosian curls flow’d; great heav’n shook: and both were severéd,
Their counsels broken. To the depth of Neptune’s kingdom div’d
Thetis from heav’n’s height; Jove arose; and all the Gods receiv’d
(All rising from their thrones) their Sire, attending to his court.
None sate when he rose, none delay’d the furnishing his port
Till he came near; all met with him, and brought him to his throne.
Nor sate great Juno ignorant, when she beheld alone
Old Nereus’ silver-footed seed with Jove, that she had brought
Counsels to heav’n; and straight her tongue had teeth in it, that wrought
This sharp invective: “Who was that (thou craftiest counsellor
Of all the Gods) that so apart some secret did implore?
Ever, apart from me, thou lov’st to counsel and decree
Things of more close trust than thou think’st are fit t’ impart to me.
Whatever thou determin’st, I must ever be denied
The knowledge of it by thy will.” To her speech thus replied
The Father both of men and Gods: “Have never hope to know
My whole intentions, though my wife; it fits not, nor would show
Well to thine own thoughts; but what fits thy woman’s ear to hear,
Woman, nor man, nor God, shall know before it grace thine ear.
Yet what, apart from men and Gods, I please to know, forbear
T’ examine, or inquire of that.” She with the cow’s fair eyes,
Respected Juno, this return’d: “Austere king of the skies,
What hast thou utter’d? When did I before this time inquire,
Or sift thy counsels? Passing close you are still. Your desire
Is serv’d with such care, that I fear you can scarce vouch the deed
That makes it public, being seduc’d by this old sea-god’s seed,
That could so early use her knees, embracing thine. I doubt,
The late act of thy bowéd head was for the working out
Of some boon she ask’d; that her son thy partial hand would please
With plaguing others.” “Wretch!” said he, “thy subtle jealousies
Are still exploring; my designs can never ’scape thine eye,
Which yet thou never canst prevent. Thy curiosity
Makes thee less car’d for at my hands, and horrible the end
Shall make thy humour. If it be what thy suspects intend,
What then? ’Tis my free will it should; to which let way be giv’n
With silence. Curb your tongue in time; lest all the Gods in heav’n
Too few be and too weak to help thy punish’d insolence,
When my inaccessible hands shall fall on thee.” The sense
Of this high threat’ning made her fear, and silent she sate down,
Humbling her great heart. All the Gods in court of Jove did frown
At this offence giv’n; amongst whom heav’n’s famous artizan,
Ephaistus, in his mother’s care, this comely speech began:
“Believe it, these words will breed wounds, beyond our pow’rs to bear,
If thus for mortals ye fall out. Ye make a tumult here
That spoils our banquet. Evermore worst matters put down best.
But, mother, though yourself be wise, yet let your son request
His wisdom audience. Give good terms to our lov’d father Jove,
For fear he take offence again, and our kind banquet prove
A wrathful battle. If he will, the heav’nly Light’ner can
Take you and toss you from your throne; his pow’r Olympian
Is so surpassing. Soften then with gentle speech his spleen,
And drink to him; I know his heart will quickly down again.”
This said, arising from his throne, in his lov’d mother’s hand
He put the double-handed cup, and said: “Come, do not stand
On these cross humours, suffer, bear, though your great bosom grieve,
And lest blows force you; all my aid not able to relieve
Your hard condition, though these eyes behold it, and this heart
Sorrow to think it. ’Tis a task too dang’rous to take part
Against Olympius. I myself the proof of this still feel.
When other Gods would fain have help’d, he took me by the heel,
And hurl’d me out of heav’n. All day I was in falling down;
At length in Lemnos I strook earth. The likewise-falling sun
And I, together, set; my life almost set too; yet there
The Sintii cheer’d and took me up.” This did to laughter cheer
White-wristed Juno, who now took the cup of him, and smil’d.
The sweet peace-making draught went round, and lame Ephaistus fill’d
Nectar to all the other Gods. A laughter never left
Shook all the blesséd deities, to see the lame so deft
At that cup service. All that day, ev’n till the sun went down,
They banqueted, and had such cheer as did their wishes crown.
Nor had they music less divine; Apollo there did touch
His most sweet harp, to which, with voice, the Muses pleas’d as much.
But when the sun’s fair light was set, each Godhead to his house
Address’d for sleep, where ev’ry one, with art most curious,
By heav’n’s great both-foot-halting God a sev’ral roof had built.
Ev’n he to sleep went, by whose hand heav’n is with lightning gilt,
High Jove, where he had us’d to rest when sweet sleep seiz’d his eyes;
By him the golden-thron’d Queen slept, the Queen of deities.

THE END OF THE FIRST BOOK.

[1] “See my bed made,” it may be Englished. The word is ἀντιόωσαν, which signifies contra stantem as standing of one side opposite to another on the other side; which yet others translate capessentem et adornantem; which since it shows best to a reader, I follow.

[2] This simile Virgil directly translates.

THE SECOND BOOK OF HOMER’S ILIADS

THE ARGUMENT

Jove calls a vision up from Somnus’ den
To bid Atrides muster up his men.
The King, to Greeks dissembling his desire,
Persuades them to their country to retire.
By Pallas’ will, Ulysses stays their flight:
And wise old Nestor heartens them to fight.
They take their meat; which done, to arms they go,
And march in good array against the foe.
So those of Troy; when Iris, from the sky,
Of Saturn’s son performs the embassy.

ANOTHER ARGUMENT

Beta the dream and synod cites;
And catalogues the naval knights.

The other Gods, and knights at arms, all night slept; only Jove
Sweet slumber seiz’d not; he discours’d how best he might approve
His vow made for Achilles’ grace, and make the Grecians find
His miss in much death. All ways cast, this counsel serv’d his mind
With most allowance; to despatch a harmful Dream to greet
The king of men, and gave this charge: “Go to the Achive fleet,
Pernicious Dream, and, being arriv’d in Agamemnon’s tent,
Deliver truly all this charge. Command him to convent
His whole host arm’d before these tow’rs; for now Troy’s broad-way’d town
He shall take in; the heav’n-hous’d Gods are now indiff’rent grown:
Juno’s request hath won them; Troy now under imminent ills
At all parts labours.” This charge heard, the Vision straight fulfils;
The ships reach’d, and Atrides’ tent, in which he found him laid,
Divine sleep pour’d about his pow’rs. He stood above his head
Like Nestor, grac’d of old men most, and this did intimate:
“Sleeps the wise Atreus’ tame-horse son? A councillor of state
Must not the whole night spend in sleep, to whom the people are
For guard committed, and whose life stands bound to so much care.
Now hear me, then, Jove’s messenger, who, though far off from thee,
Is near thee yet in ruth and care, and gives command by me
To arm thy whole host. Thy strong hand the broad-way’d town of Troy
Shall now take in; no more the Gods dissentiously employ
Their high-hous’d powers; Juno’s suit hath won them all to her;
And ill fates overhang these tow’rs, address’d by Jupiter.
Fix in thy mind this, nor forget to give it action, when
Sweet sleep shall leave thee.” Thus, he fled; and left the king of men
Repeating in discourse his dream, and dreaming still, awake,
Of pow’r, not ready yet for act. O fool, he thought to take
In that next day old Priam’s town; not knowing what affairs
Jove had in purpose, who prepar’d, by strong fight, sighs and cares
For Greeks and Trojans. The Dream gone, his voice still murmured
About the king’s ears; who sate up, put on him in his bed
His silken inner weed, fair, new; and then in haste arose,
Cast on his ample mantle, tied to his soft feet fair shoes,
His silver-hilted sword he hung about his shoulder, took
His father’s sceptre never stain’d, which then abroad he shook,
And went to fleet. And now great heav’n Goddess Aurora scal’d,
To Jove, and all Gods, bringing light; when Agamemnon call’d
His heralds, charging them aloud to call to instant court
The thick-hair’d Greeks. The heralds call’d; the Greeks made quick resort.
The Council chiefly he compos’d of old great-minded men,
At Nestor’s ships, the Pylian king. All there assembled then,
Thus Atreus’ son begun the court: “Hear, friends: A Dream divine,
Amidst the calm night in my sleep, did through my shut eyes shine,
Within my fantasy. His form did passing naturally
Resemble Nestor; such attire, a stature just as high.
He stood above my head, and words thus fashion’d did relate:
‘Sleeps the wise Atreus’ tame-horse son? A councillor of state
Must not the whole night spend in sleep, to whom the people are
For guard committed, and whose life stands bound to so much care.
Now hear me then, Jove’s messenger, who, though far off from thee,
Is near thee yet in love and care, and gives command by me
To arm thy whole host. Thy strong hand the broad-way’d town of Troy
Shall now take in; no more the Gods dissentiously employ
Their high-hous’d pow’rs; Saturnia’s suit hath won them all to her;
And ill fates over-hang these tow’rs, address’d by Jupiter.
Fix in thy mind this.’ This express’d, he took wing and away,
And sweet sleep left me. Let us then by all our means assay
To arm our army; I will first (as far as fits our right)
Try their addictions, and command with full-sail’d ships our flight;
Which if they yield to, oppose you.” He sate, and up arose
Nestor, of sandy Pylos king, who, willing to dispose
Their counsel to the public good, propos’d this to the state:
“Princes and Councillors of Greece, if any should relate
This vision but the king himself, it might be held a tale,
And move the rather our retreat; but since our General
Affirms he saw it, hold it true, and all our best means make
To arm our army.” This speech us’d, he first the Council brake;
The other sceptre-bearing States arose too, and obey’d
The people’s Rector. Being abroad, the earth was overlaid
With flockers to them, that came forth, as when of frequent bees
Swarms rise out of a hollow rock, repairing the degrees
Of their egression endlessly, with ever rising new
From forth their sweet nest; as their store, still as it faded, grew,
And never would cease sending forth her clusters to the spring,
They still crowd out so; this fleck here, that there, belabouring
The loaded flow’rs; so from the ships and tents the army’s store
Troop’d to these princes and the court, along th’ unmeasur’d shore;
Amongst whom, Jove’s ambassadress, Fame, in her virtue shin’d,
Exciting greediness to hear. The rabble, thus inclin’d,
Hurried together; uproar seiz’d the high court; earth did groan
Beneath the settling multitude; tumult was there alone.
Thrice-three vocif’rous heralds rose, to check the rout, and get
Ear to their Jove-kept governors; and instantly was set
That huge confusion; ev’ry man set fast, the clamour ceas’d.
Then stood divine Atrides up, and in his hand compress’d
His sceptre, th’ elaborate work of fi’ry Mulciber,
Who gave it to Saturnian Jove; Jove to his messenger;
His messenger, Argicides, to Pelops, skill’d in horse;
Pelops to Atreus, chief of men; he, dying, gave it course
To prince Thyestes, rich in herds; Thyestes to the hand
Of Agamemnon render’d it, and with it the command
Of many isles, and Argos all. On this he leaning, said:
“O friends, great sons of Danaus, servants of Mars, Jove laid
A heavy curse on me, to vow, and bind it with the bent
Of his high forehead; that, this Troy of all her people spent,
I should return; yet now to mock our hopes built on his vow,
And charge ingloriously my flight, when such an overthrow
Of brave friends I have authored. But to his mightiest will
We must submit us, that hath raz’d, and will be razing still,
Men’s footsteps from so many towns; because his pow’r is most,
He will destroy most. But how vile such and so great an host
Will show to future times, that, match’d with lesser numbers far,
We fly, not putting on the crown of our so-long-held war,
Of which there yet appears no end! Yet should our foes and we
Strike truce, and number both our pow’rs; Troy taking all that be
Her arm’d inhabitants, and we, in tens, should all sit down
At our truce banquet, ev’ry ten allow’d one of the town
To fill his feast-cup; many tens would their attendant want;
So much I must affirm our pow’r exceeds th’ inhabitant.
But their auxiliáry bands, those brandishers of spears,
From many cities drawn, are they that are our hinderers,
Not suff’ring well-rais’d Troy to fall. Nine years are ended now,
Since Jove our conquest vow’d; and now, our vessels rotten grow,
Our tackling falls; our wives, young sons, sit in their doors and long
For our arrival; yet the work, that should have wreak’d our wrong,
And made us welcome, lies unwrought. Come then, as I bid, all
Obey, and fly to our lov’d home; for now, nor ever, shall
Our utmost take-in broad-way’d Troy.” This said, the multitude
Was all for home; and all men else that what this would conclude
Had not discover’d. All the crowd was shov’d about the shore,
In sway, like rude and raging waves, rous’d with the fervent blore
Of th’ east and south winds, when they break from Jove’s clouds, and are borne
On rough backs of th’ Icarian seas: or like a field of corn
High grown, that Zephyr’s vehement gusts bring eas’ly underneath,
And make the stiff up-bristled ears do homage to his breath;
For ev’n so eas’ly, with the breath Atrides us’d, was sway’d
The violent multitude. To fleet with shouts, and disarray’d,
All rush’d; and, with a fog of dust, their rude feet dimm’d the day;
Each cried to other, “Cleanse our ships, come, launch, aboard, away.”
The clamour of the runners home reach’d heav’n; and then, past fate,
The Greeks had left Troy, had not then the Goddess of estate
Thus spoke to Pallas: “O foul shame, thou untam’d seed of Jove,
Shall thus the sea’s broad back be charg’d with these our friends’ remove,
Thus leaving Argive Helen here, thus Priam grac’d, thus Troy,
In whose fields, far from their lov’d own, for Helen’s sake, the joy
And life of so much Grecian birth is vanish’d? Take thy way
T’ our brass-arm’d people, speak them fair, let not a man obey
The charge now giv’n, nor launch one ship.” She said, and Pallas did
As she commanded; from the tops of heav’n’s steep hill she slid,
And straight the Greeks’ swift ships she reach’d; Ulysses (like to Jove
In gifts of counsel) she found out; who to that base remove
Stirr’d not a foot, nor touch’d a ship, but griev’d at heart to see
That fault in others. To him close the blue-eyed Deity
Made way, and said: “Thou wisest Greek, divine Laertes’ son,
Thus fly ye homewards to your ships? Shall all thus headlong run?
Glory to Priam thus ye leave, glory to all his friends,
If thus ye leave her here, for whom so many violent ends
Have clos’d your Greek eyes, and so far from their so loved home.
Go to these people, use no stay, with fair terms overcome
Their foul endeavour, not a man a flying sail let hoice.”
Thus spake she; and Ulysses knew ’twas Pallas by her voice,
Ran to the runners, cast from him his mantle, which his man
And herald, grave Eurybates, the Ithacensian
That follow’d him, took up. Himself to Agamemnon went,
His incorrupted sceptre took, his sceptre of descent,
And with it went about the fleet. What prince, or man of name,
He found flight-giv’n, he would restrain with words of gentlest blame:
“Good sir, it fits not you to fly, or fare as one afraid,
You should not only stay yourself, but see the people staid.
You know not clearly, though you heard the king’s words, yet his mind;
He only tries men’s spirits now, and, whom his trials find
Apt to this course, he will chastise, Nor you, nor I, heard all
He spake in council; nor durst press too near our General,
Lest we incens’d him to our hurt. The anger of a king
Is mighty; he is kept of Jove, and from Jove likewise spring
His honours, which, out of the love of wise Jove, he enjoys.”
Thus he the best sort us’d; the worst, whose spirits brake out in noise,
He cudgell’d with his sceptre, chid, and said: “Stay, wretch, be still,
And hear thy betters; thou art base, and both in pow’r and skill
Poor and unworthy, without name in council or in war.
We must not all be kings. The rule is most irregular,
Where many rule. One lord, one king, propose to thee; and he,
To whom wise Saturn’s son, hath giv’n both law and empery
To rule the public, is that king.” Thus ruling, he restrain’d
The host from flight; and then again the Council was maintain’d
With such a concourse, that the shore rung with the tumult made;
As when the far-resounding sea doth in its rage invade
His sandy confines, whose sides groan with his involvéd wave,
And make his own breast echo sighs. All sate, and audience gave.
Thersites only would speak all. A most disorder’d store
Of words he foolishly pour’d out, of which his mind held more
Than it could manage; any thing, with which he could procure
Laughter, he never could contain. He should have yet been sure
To touch no kings; t’ oppose their states becomes not jesters’ parts.
But he the filthiest fellow was of all that had deserts
In Troy’s brave siege; he was squint-ey’d, and lame of either foot;
So crook-back’d, that he had no breast; sharp-headed, where did shoot
(Here and there spers’d) thin mossy hair. He most of all envíed
Ulysses and Æacides, whom still his spleen would chide.
Nor could the sacred King himself avoid his saucy vein;
Against whom since he knew the Greeks did vehement hates sustain,
Being angry for Achilles’ wrong, he cried out, railing thus:
“Atrides, why complain’st thou now? What would’st thou more of us?
Thy tents are full of brass; and dames, the choice of all, are thine,
With whom we must present thee first, when any towns resign
To our invasion. Want’st thou then, besides all this, more gold
From Troy’s knights to redeem their sons, whom to be dearly sold
I or some other Greek must take? Or would’st thou yet again
Force from some other lord his prise, to soothe the lusts that reign
In thy encroaching appetite? It fits no prince to be
A prince of ill, and govern us, or lead our progeny
By rape to ruin. O base Greeks, deserving infamy,
And ills eternal! Greekish girls, not Greeks, ye are! Come, fly
Home with our ships; leave this man here to perish with his preys,
And try if we help’d him or not; he wrong’d a man that weighs
Far more than he himself in worth; he forc’d from Thetis’ son,
And keeps his prise still. Nor think I that mighty man hath won
The style of wrathful worthily; he’s soft, he’s too remiss;
Or else, Atrides, his had been thy last of injuries.”
Thus he the people’s Pastor chid; but straight stood up to him
Divine Ulysses, who, with looks exceeding grave and grim,
This bitter check gave: “Cease, vain fool, to vent thy railing vein
On kings thus, though it serve thee well; nor think thou canst restrain,
With that thy railing faculty, their wills in least degree;
For not a worse, of all this host, came with our King than thee,
To Troy’s great siege; then do not take into that mouth of thine
The names of kings, much less revile the dignities that shine
In their supreme states, wresting thus this motion for our home,
To soothe thy cowardice; since ourselves yet know not what will come
Of these designments, if it be our good to stay, or go.
Nor is it that thou stand’st on; thou revil’st our Gen’ral so,
Only because he hath so much, not giv’n by such as thou
But our heroës. Therefore this thy rude vein makes me vow
(Which shall be curiously observ’d) if ever I shall hear
This madness from thy mouth again, let not Ulysses bear
This head, nor be the father call’d of young Telemachus,
If to thy nakedness I take and strip thee not, and thus
Whip thee to fleet from council; send, with sharp stripes, weeping hence
This glory thou affect’st to rail.” This said, his insolence
He settled with his sceptre; strook his back and shoulders so
That bloody wales rose. He shrunk round; and from his eyes did flow
Moist tears, and, looking filthily, he sate, fear’d, smarted, dried
His blubber’d cheeks; and all the prease, though griev’d to be denied
Their wish’d retreat for home, yet laugh’d delightsomely, and spake
Either to other: “O ye Gods, how infinitely take
Ulysses’ virtues in our good! Author of counsels, great
In ord’ring armies, how most well this act became his heat,
To beat from council this rude fool! I think his saucy spirit,
Hereafter, will not let his tongue abuse the sov’reign merit,
Exempt from such base tongues as his.” Thus spake the people; then
The city-razer Ithacus stood up to speak again,
Holding his sceptre. Close to him gray-eyed Minerva stood,
And, like a herald, silence caus’d, that all the Achive brood
(From first to last) might hear and know the counsel; when, inclin’d
To all their good, Ulysses said: “Atrides, now I find
These men would render thee the shame of all men; nor would pay
Their own vows to thee, when they took their free and honour’d way
From Argos hither, that, till Troy were by their brave hands rac’d,
They would not turn home. Yet, like babes, and widows, now they haste
To that base refuge, ’Tis a spite to see men melted so
In womanish changes; though ’tis true, that if a man do go
Only a month to sea, and leave his wife far off, and he,
Tortur’d with winter’s storms, and toss’d with a tumultuous sea,
Grows heavy, and would home. Us then, to whom the thrice-three year
Hath fill’d his revoluble orb since our arrival here,
I blame not to wish home much more; yet all this time to stay,
Out of our judgments, for our end; and now to take our way
Without it, were absurd and vile. Sustain then, friends; abide
The time set to our object; try if Calchas prophesied
True of the time or not. We know, ye all can witness well,
(Whom these late death-conferring fates have fail’d to send to hell)
That when in Aulis, all our fleet, assembled with a freight
Of ills to Ilion and her friends, beneath the fair grown height
A platane bore, about a fount, whence crystal water flow’d,
And near our holy altar, we upon the Gods bestow’d
Accomplish’d hecatombs; and there appear’d a huge portent,
A dragon with a bloody scale, horrid to sight, and sent
To light by great Olympius; which, crawling from beneath
The altar, to the platane climb’d, and ruthless crash’d to death
A sparrow’s young, in number eight, that in a top-bough lay
Hid under leaves; the dam the ninth, that hover’d every way,
Mourning her lov’d birth, till at length, the serpent, watching her,
Her wing caught, and devour’d her too. This dragon, Jupiter,
That brought him forth, turn’d to a stone, and made a pow’rful mean
To stir our zeals up, that admir’d, when of a fact so clean
Of all ill as our sacrifice, so fearful an ostent
Should be the issue. Calchas, then, thus prophesied th’ event
‘Why are ye dumb-strook, fair-hair’d Greeks? Wise Jove is he hath shown
This strange ostent to us. ’Twas late, and passing lately done,
But that grace it foregoes to us, for suff’ring all the state
Of his appearance (being so slow) nor time shall end, nor fate.
As these eight sparrows, and the dam (that made the ninth) were eat
By this stern serpent; so nine years we are t’ endure the heat
Of rav’nous war, and, in the tenth, take-in this broad-way’d town.’
Thus he interpreted this sign; and all things have their crown
As he interpreted, till now. The rest, then, to succeed
Believe as certain. Stay we all, till, that most glorious deed
Of taking this rich town, our hands are honour’d with.” This said,
The Greeks gave an unmeasur’d shout; which back the ships repaid
With terrible echoes, in applause of that persuasion
Divine Ulysses us’d; which yet held no comparison
With Nestor’s next speech, which was this: “O shameful thing! Ye talk
Like children all, that know not war. In what air’s region walk
Our oaths, and cov’nants? Now, I see the fit respects of men
Are vanish’d quite; our right hands giv’n, our faiths, our counsels vain,
Our sacrifice with wine, all fled in that profanéd flame
We made to bind all; for thus still we vain persuasions frame,
And strive to work our end with words, not joining stratagemes
And hands together, though, thus long, the pow’r of our extremes
Hath urg’d us to them. Atreus’ son, firm as at first hour stand!
Make good thy purpose; talk no more in councils, but command
In active field. Let two or three, that by themselves advise,
Faint in their crowning; they are such as are not truly wise;
They will for Argos, ere they knew if that which Jove hath said
Be false or true. I tell them all, that high Jove bow’d his head,
As first we went aboard our fleet, for sign we should confer
These Trojans their due fate and death; almighty Jupiter
All that day darting forth his flames, in an unmeasur’d light,
On our right hand. Let therefore none once dream of coward flight,
Till (for his own) some wife of Troy he sleeps withal, the rape
Of Helen wreaking, and our sighs enforc’d for her escape.
If any yet dare dote on home, let his dishonour’d haste
His black and well-built bark but touch, that (as he first disgrac’d
His country’s spirit) fate, and death, may first his spirit let go.
But be thou wise, king, do not trust thyself, but others. Know
I will not use an abject word. See all thy men array’d
In tribes and nations, that tribes tribes, nations may nations, aid.
Which doing, thou shalt know what chiefs, what soldiers, play the men,
And what the cowards; for they all will fight in sev’ral then,
Easy for note. And then shalt thou, if thou destroy’st not Troy,
Know if the prophecy’s defect, or men thou dost employ
In their approv’d arts want in war, or lack of that brave heat
Fit for the vent’rous spirits of Greece, was cause to thy defeat.”
To this the king of men replied: “O father, all the sons
Of Greece thou conquer’st in the strife of consultations.
I would to Jove, Athenia, and Phœbus, I could make,
Of all, but ten such counsellors; then instantly would shake
King Priam’s city, by our hands laid hold on and laid waste.
But Jove hath order’d I should grieve, and to that end hath cast
My life into debates past end. Myself, and Thetis’ son,
Like girls, in words fought for a girl, and I th’ offence begun.
But if we ever talk as friends, Troy’s thus deferréd fall
Shall never vex us more one hour. Come then, to victuals all,
That strong Mars all may bring to field. Each man his lance’s steel
See sharpen’d well, his shield well lin’d, his horses meated well,
His chariot carefully made strong, that these affairs of death
We all day may hold fiercely out. No man must rest, or breath;
The bosoms of our targeteers must all be steeped in sweat;
The lancer’s arm must fall dissolv’d; our chariot-horse with heat
Must seem to melt. But if I find one soldier take the chace,
Or stir from fight, or fight not still fix’d in his enemy’s face,
Or hid a-ship-board, all the world, for force, nor price, shall save
His hated life, but fowls and dogs be his abhorréd grave.”
He said; and such a murmur rose, as on a lofty shore
The waves make, when the south wind comes, and tumbles them before
Against a rock, grown near the strand which diversely beset
Is never free, but, here and there, with varied uproars beat.
All rose then, rushing to the fleet, perfum’d their tents, and eat;
Each off’ring to th’ immortal gods, and praying to ’scape the heat
Of war and death. The king of men an ox of five years’ spring
T’ almighty Jove slew, call’d the peers; first Nestor; then the king
Idomenëus; after them th’ Ajaces; and the son
Of Tydeus; Ithacus the sixth, in counsel paragon
To Jove himself. All these he bade; but at-a-martial-cry
Good Menelaus, since he saw his brother busily
Employ’d at that time, would not stand on invitation,
But of himself came. All about the off’ring over-thrown
Stood round, took salt-cakes, and the king himself thus pray’d for all:
“O Jove, most great, most glorious, that, in that starry hall,
Sitt’st drawing dark clouds up to air, let not the sun go down,
Darkness supplying it, till my hands the palace and the town
Of Priam overthrow and burn; the arm, on Hector’s breast
Dividing, spoiling with my sword thousands, in interest
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.