Homeric Garlands[F]
ILIAD I. 43-52.
Thus spake the old man, praying, and Phœbus Apollo did hear him,—
Down from the heights of Olympus the god, in anger, descended;
Over his shoulders were flung the dreadful bow and the quiver
Bristling with arrows, that rattled as onward he moved in his anger:
Gloomy as night he went, and aloof from the Greeks’ broad encampment
Sat down in silence,—then forth flashed the bow and swift sped the arrow—
Loud thereupon rose the twang of the silver bow’s dreadful rebounding—
Far sped the death-bearing darts; first perished the mules and the fleet dogs,
Then at the Greeks did the angered god straightway aim his arrows—
Dismal by night flared the gleaming red of the funeral pyres.
ILIAD I. 528-539.
Spake the son of Kronos, the while with his dark brows nodding assent—
Straightway ambrosial locks did stream from the head of the Sovereign,
How at that nod did mighty Olympus shake to its centre!
Then they did part there, these two having secretly counciled together,
She from the heights of shining Olympus plunged into the deep sea
Zeus to his palace went, and the gods all at one accord moving,
Rose from their seats together, and stood at sight of their great Sire—
None durst abide his coming—then Zeus in their midst, going straightway,
Sat on his throne: but Heré had seen all, and knew what had happened,
Knew that silver-foot Thetis had been with her husband entreating—
Thetis, that child of the old Sea Man, had held with him council—
With heart-cutting words she spake, the son of Kronos addressing.
ILIAD III. 1-14.
Now, when drawn up by its leaders each army was marshalled for battle,
Forth moved the Trojan host with clangor of arms and with shouting,
Like to the crying and clamor of cranes from on high when escaping
Wintry storms they fly southward over the streams of the ocean—
Fighting and mingling aloft in the air in dire contention—
Bringing bloodshed and death to the pigmy races of mankind:
But silently went the Greeks, breathing destruction and hatred,
Mindful, each in the pending combat to aid one another.
Like when Notos, the south wind, pours down a mist o’er the mountain
Dreadful to shepherds but always more pleasing to thieves than the nightfall,
And one can see as far as a stone may be hurled, in the darkness,—
Thus then the turbulent dust arose ’neath the feet of the warriors
Rose in the air from the earth, as through the vast plain they swept onward.
ILIAD VI. 146-149.
As bloom the leaves of the trees, so spring the races of mankind—
Scattered for aye are the leaves by the blasts of one autumn,
Yet do the trees bloom anew when spring-time returns in her glory,—
Budding anew, but to wither and fall with the blasts of the autumn;
Thus are the races of man—now bloom they, and now they lie scattered.