The Iliads of Homer / Translated according to the Greek

by Homer

[1] These next four books have not my last hand; and because the rest (for a time) will be sufficient to employ your censures, suspend them of these. Spare not the other.

[2] O verè Phrygiæ, neque enim Phryges; saith his imitator.

[3] O si præteritos referat mihi Jupiter annos Qualis eram, etc.

[4] Hine illud: Dominus clypei septemplicis Ajax.

[5] Hector gives Ajax a sword; Ajax, Hector a girdle. Both which gifts were afterwards cause of both their deaths.

[6] Virgil imit.

[7] The fortification that in the twelfth book is razed.

THE EIGHTH BOOK OF HOMER’S ILIADS

THE ARGUMENT

When Jove to all the Gods had giv’n command,
That none to either host should helpful stand,
To Ida he descends; and sees from thence
Juno and Pallas haste the Greeks’ defence;
Whose purpose, his command, by Iris given,
Doth intervent. Then came the silent even,
When Hector charg’d fires should consume the night,
Lest Greeks in darkness took suspected flight.