Homer ILIAD : Rhapsody 22

Page 15

Thus would some one say, and, standing by, would wound him. But swift-footed Achilles, after he had despoiled him, standing amongst the Greeks, spoke winged words:

"O friends, leaders and princes of the Greeks, since the gods have granted us to subdue this hero, he who did as many mischiefs, as did not all the others together; come! let us make trial round the city with our arms, that we may learn concerning the Trojans, what mind they have; whether they are about to desert the citadel, he being slain, or intend to remain, Hector being no more. But why does my mind within me deliberate these things? Patroclus lies at the ships, an unwept, unburied corse; and him I shall never forget, as long as I am amongst the living, and my dear knees move for me; and though they forget the dead in Hades, yet will I remember my beloved comrade even there. But come now, ye youths of the Greeks, singing a paean,[713] let us return to the hollow ships, and let us bring him; we bear back great glory: we have slain noble Hector, whom the Trojans, throughout the city, worshipped as a god."

He spoke, and was meditating unseemly deeds against noble Hector. He perforated the tendons of both his feet behind, from the heel to the instep, and fastened in them leather thongs, and bound him from the chariot; but left his head to be trailed along. Then ascending his chariot, and taking up the splendid armour, he lashed (the horses) to go on, and they, not unwilling, flew. But the dust arose from him while trailed along, and his azure locks around approached [the ground],[714] and his entire head, once graceful, lay in the dust; for Jupiter had then granted to his enemies, to dishonour him in his own father-land. Thus indeed his whole head was denied with dust; but his mother plucked out her hair, and cast away her shining veil, and wept very loudly, having beheld her son. And his dear father groaned piteously, and all the people around were occupied in wailing and lamentation through the city; and it was very like to this, as if all Ilium, from its summit, were smouldering in fire. With difficulty indeed did the people detain the old man, indignant with grief anxious to rush out from the Dardanian gates: for rolling in the mud, he was supplicating all, addressing each man by name:

[Footnote 713: "This hymn consisted in a repetition, cf. v. 393, 4, which Quintus Smyrnaeus has imitated in id. 117, and Abronius Silo translated ap. Senec. Suas. c. 2. The most ancient hymn of this kind on record is that in the first book of Samuel, xviii. 7."—Kennedy.]

[Footnote 714: Supply [Greek: oudei] or [Greek: konie].]

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Rhapsody 22

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