The Iliad Homer (big screen ebook reader txt) 📖

“Unhappy chiefs and princes of the Greeks!
Are ye then doomed to feast with your fair limbs
The famished dogs of Ilium, far away
From friends and country? Tell me, child of Jove,
Gallant Eurypylus, will yet the Greeks
Withstand the mighty Hector, or give way
And perish, overtaken by his spear?”

And thus the wise Eurypylus replied:⁠—
“Nursling of Jove, Patroclus! For the Greeks
There is no help, and all at their black ships
Must perish; for within them even now
All those who were our bravest warriors lie,
Wounded in close encounter, or from far,
By Trojan hands, whose strength with every hour
Becomes more terrible. Give now thine aid
And take me to my ship, and cut away
The arrow from my thigh, and from the part
Cleanse with warm water the dark blood, and shed
Soothing and healing balms upon the wound,
As taught thee by Achilles, who had learned
The art from Chiron, righteous in his day
Beyond all other Centaurs. Now the leech
Machaon lies, I think, among the tents,
Wounded, and needs the aid of others’ skill,
And Podalirius out upon the plain
Helps stem the onset of the Trojan host.”

Then spake the valiant Menoetiades:⁠—
“O brave Eurypylus! What yet will be
The end of this, and what are we to do?
Even now I bear a message on my way
From reverend Nestor, guardian of the Greeks,
To the great warrior, Peleus’ son; and yet
I must not leave thee in thine hour of need.”

He spake; and, lifting in his arms the prince,
He bore him to his tent. A servant spread,
Upon his entering, hides to form a couch;
And there Patroclus laid him down and cut
The rankling arrow from his thigh, and shed
Warm water on the wound to cleanse away
The purple blood, and last applied a root
Of bitter flavor to assuage the smart,
Bruising it first within his palms: the pangs
Ceased; the wound dried; the blood no longer flowed.

Division of the Trojan army, by advice of Polydamas, into five bodies, to storm the Greek entrenchments⁠—A breach in the wall made by Sarpedon⁠—One of the gates beaten open by Hector with a stone⁠—His entrance at the head of his troops.

Thus in the camp Menoetius’ valiant son
Tended Eurypylus, and dressed his wounds;
While yet in mingled throngs the warriors fought⁠—
Trojans and Greeks. Nor longer was the trench
A barrier for the Greeks, nor the broad wall
Which they had built above it to defend
Their fleet; for all around it they had drawn
The trench, yet not with chosen hecatombs
Paid to the gods, that so it might protect
The galleys and the heaps of spoil they held.
Without the favor of the gods it rose,
And therefore was not long to stand entire.
As long as Hector lived, and Peleus’ son
Was angered, and King Priam’s city yet
Was not o’erthrown, so long the massive wall
Built by the Greeks stood firm. But when at length
The bravest of the Trojans had been slain,
And many of the Greeks were dead⁠—though still
Others survived⁠—and when in the tenth year
The city of Priam fell, and in their ships
The Greeks went back to their beloved land,
Then did Apollo and the god of sea
Consult together to destroy the wall
By turning on it the resistless might
Of rivers, all that from the Idaean heights
Flow to the ocean⁠—Rhesus, Granicus,
Heptaporus, Caresus, Rhodius,
Aesepus, and Scamander’s hallowed stream,
And Simoïs, in whose bed lay many shields
And helms and bodies of slain demigods.
Phoebus Apollo turned the mouths of these
All toward one spot; nine days against the wall
He bade their currents rush, while Jupiter
Poured constant rain, that floods might overwhelm
The rampart; and the god who shakes the earth,
Wielding his trident, led the rivers on.
He flung among the billows the huge beams
And stones which, with hard toil, the Greeks had laid
For the foundations. Thus he levelled all
Beside the hurrying Hellespont, destroyed
The bulwarks utterly, and overspread
The long broad shore with sand; and then he brought
Again the rivers to the ancient beds
In which their gently flowing waters ran.

This yet was to be done in time to come
By Neptune and Apollo. Meanwhile raged
Battle and tumult round that strong-built wall.
The towers in all their timbers rang with blows;
And, driven as by the scourge of Jove, the Greeks,
Hemmed closely in beside their roomy ships,
Trembled at Hector, the great scatterer
Of squadrons, fighting, as he did before,
With all a whirlwind’s might. As when a boar
Or lion mid the hounds and huntsmen stands,
Fearfully strong, and fierce of eye, and they
In square array assault him, and their hands
Fling many a javelin;⁠—yet his noble heart
Fears not, nor does he fly, although at last
His courage cause his death; and oft he turns.
And tries their ranks; and where he makes a rush
The ranks give way;⁠—so Hector moved and turned
Among the crowd, and bade his followers cross
The trench. The swift-paced horses ventured not
The leap, but stood upon the edge and neighed
Aloud, for the wide space affrighted them;
And hard it was to spring across, or pass
From side to side, for on each side the brink
Was steep, and bristled with sharp stakes, close set
And strong, which there the warrior sons of Greece
Had planted, a defence against the foe.
No steed that whirled the rapid car along
Could enter, but the soldiery on foot
Eagerly sought to pass, and in these words
Polydamas to daring Hector spake:⁠—

“Hector, and ye who lead the troops of Troy
And our auxiliars! Rashly do we seek
To urge our rapid steeds across the trench
So hard to pass, beset with pointed stakes⁠—
And the Greek wall so near. The troops of horse
Cannot descend nor combat there: the space
Is narrow: they would all be slain. If Jove,
The Thunderer of the skies, design to crush
The Greeks and succor Troy, I should rejoice
Were the design at once fulfilled, and all
The sons of Greece ingloriously cut off,
Far from