Homer ILIAD : Rhapsody 23

Page 11

"O son of Atreus, and ye other chiefs of the Greeks, first, indeed, extinguish the whole pile, as much as the fire has seized, with dark wine; and then let us collect the bones of Patroclus, the son of Menoetius, well discriminating them (for they are readily distinguished; for he lay in the centre of the pyre, but the others, both horses and men, were burned promiscuously at the extremity), and let us place them in a golden vessel, and with a double [layer of] fat, till I myself be hidden in Hades. And I wish that a tomb should be made, not very large, but of such[741] a size as is becoming; but do ye, O Achaeans, hereafter, make it both broad and lofty, you who may be left behind me at the many-benched barks."

Thus he spoke; and they obeyed the swift-footed son of Peleus. First of all, indeed, they totally extinguished the pyre with dark wine, as much as the fire had invaded, and the deep ashes fell in; and, weeping, they collected the white bones of their mild companion into a golden vessel, and a double [layer of] fat; then, laying them in the tent, they covered them with soft[742] linen. Next they marked out the area for the tomb, and laid the foundations around the pile; and immediately upraised a mound of earth; and, heaping up the tomb, returned. But Achilles detained the people there, and made the wide assembly sit down; but from the ships he brought forth prizes, goblets, tripods, horses, mules, and sturdy heads of oxen, and slender-waisted women, and hoary[743] iron. First he staked as prizes for swift-footed steeds, a woman to be borne away, faultless, skilled in works, as well as a handled tripod of two-and-twenty measures, for the first; but for the second he staked a mare six years old, unbroken, pregnant with a young mule; for the third he staked a fireless tripod, beautiful, containing four measures, yet quite untarnished;[744] for the fourth he staked two talents of gold; and for the fifth he staked a double vessel, untouched by the fire. Erect he stood, and spoke this speech to the Greeks:

[Footnote 741: Ernesti considers that [Greek: toion] is here added to indicate magnitude, and Heyne accordingly renders it: "magnitudine fere hac," the speaker being supposed to use a gesture while thus speaking.]

[Footnote 742: See Buttm. Lexil. pp. 236--9.]

[Footnote 743: "Ernesti conceives that the colour is here maintained to express, not merely the shining aspect, but the newness of the metal; as [Greek: lenkon] in 268. This is ingenious; but why not receive it as expressive of colour, and borrowed from that to which the metal itself supplies a well-known epithet, viz., the hair of age?"—Kennedy.]

[Footnote 744: [Greek: Autos] here designates "_that which is original, unchanged_, in opposition to common changes, [Greek: lenkon eth' autos], still in that its original state, completely unblackened with fire; and [Greek: o]. 413; of the body of Hector, [Greek: all' ete keinos keitai. Autos], in that state in which he was before, still free from corruption."—Buttm. Lexil. p. 173.]

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