Homer ILIAD : Rhapsody 2

Page 12

Thus he [Ulysses] spoke, and the Greeks loudly shouted, applauding the speech of divine Ulysses; but all around the ships echoed fearfully, by reason of the Greeks shouting. Then the Gerenian[105] knight Nestor addressed them:

"O strange! assuredly now ye are talking like infant children, with whom warlike achievements are of no account. Whither then will your compacts and oaths depart? Into the fire now must the counsels and thoughts of men have sunk, and the unmixed libations, and the right hands in which we trusted; for in vain do we dispute with words, nor can we discover any resource, although we have been here for a long time. But do thou, O son of Atreus, maintaining, as before, thy purpose firm, command the Greeks in the hard-fought conflicts; and abandon those to perish, one and both,[106] who, separated from the Greeks, are meditating [but success shall not attend them] to return back to Argos, before they know whether the promise of aegis-bearing Jove be false or not. For I say that the powerful son of Saturn assented on that day, when the Argives embarked in their swift ships, bearing death and fate to the Trojans, flashing[107] his lightning on the right, and showing propitious signs. Let not any one, therefore, hasten to return home before each has slept with a Trojan wife, and has avenged the cares[108] and griefs of Helen. But if any one is extravagantly eager to return home, let him lay hands upon his well-benched black ship, that he may draw on death and fate before others. But do thou thyself deliberate well, O king, and attend to another; nor shall the advice which I am about to utter be discarded. Separate the troops, Agamemnon, according to their tribes and clans, that kindred may support kindred, and clan. If thou wilt thus act, and the Greeks obey, thou wilt then ascertain which of the generals and which of the soldiers is a dastard, and which of them may be brave, for they will fight their best,[109] and thou wilt likewise learn whether it is by the divine interposition that thou art destined not to dismantle the city, or by the cowardice of the troops, and their unskilfulness in war."

[Footnote 105: Nestor took this name from a city of Messena (_Gerenium_, a, or ia. See Arnold, and Pinedo on Steph. Byz. s.v. [Greek: Gerenia]), where he was brought up, probably after Pylos had been destroyed by Hercules.]

[Footnote 106: Proverbially meaning a few, but probably referring to Achilles and Thersites. See the Scholiast.]

[Footnote 107: Observe this bold change of construction, and compare Valck. on Lesbonax, at the end of his edition of Ammonius, p. 188.]

[Footnote 108: Hesych. [Greek: ormemata, merimnai]. Etym. M. [Greek: enthymemata, phrontides]. See Buttm. Lexil. p. 440, sqq. Helen certainly shows some repentance in iii. 176.]

[Footnote 109: "Pro virili parte," Wolf. Cf. i. 271.]

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