The Iliad, Homer [big screen ebook reader .txt] 📗

them?
Was it not for the sake of Helen? Are the sons of Atreus the only men
in the world who love their wives? Any man of common right feeling will
love and cherish her who is his own, as I this woman, with my whole
heart, though she was but a fruitling of my spear. Agamemnon has taken
her from me; he has played me false; I know him; let him tempt me no
further, for he shall not move me. Let him look to you, Ulysses, and to
the other princes to save his ships from burning. He has done much
without me already. He has built a wall; he has dug a trench deep and
wide all round it, and he has planted it within with stakes; but even
so he stays not the murderous might of Hector. So long as I fought the
Achaeans Hector suffered not the battle range far from the city walls;
he would come to the Scaean gates and to the oak tree, but no further.
Once he stayed to meet me and hardly did he escape my onset: now,
however, since I am in no mood to fight him, I will to-morrow offer
sacrifice to Jove and to all the gods; I will draw my ships into the
water and then victual them duly; to-morrow morning, if you care to
look, you will see my ships on the Hellespont, and my men rowing out to
sea with might and main. If great Neptune vouchsafes me a fair passage,
in three days I shall be in Phthia. I have much there that I left
behind me when I came here to my sorrow, and I shall bring back still
further store of gold, of red copper, of fair women, and of iron, my
share of the spoils that we have taken; but one prize, he who gave has
insolently taken away. Tell him all as I now bid you, and tell him in
public that the Achaeans may hate him and beware of him should he think
that he can yet dupe others for his effrontery never fails him.

"As for me, hound that he is, he dares not look me in the face. I will
take no counsel with him, and will undertake nothing in common with
him. He has wronged me and deceived me enough, he shall not cozen me
further; let him go his own way, for Jove has robbed him of his reason.
I loathe his presents, and for himself care not one straw. He may offer
me ten or even twenty times what he has now done, nay--not though it be
all that he has in the world, both now or ever shall have; he may
promise me the wealth of Orchomenus or of Egyptian Thebes, which is the
richest city in the whole world, for it has a hundred gates through
each of which two hundred men may drive at once with their chariots and
horses; he may offer me gifts as the sands of the sea or the dust of
the plain in multitude, but even so he shall not move me till I have
been revenged in full for the bitter wrong he has done me. I will not
marry his daughter; she may be fair as Venus, and skilful as Minerva,
but I will have none of her: let another take her, who may be a good
match for her and who rules a larger kingdom. If the gods spare me to
return home, Peleus will find me a wife; there are Achaean women in
Hellas and Phthia, daughters of kings that have cities under them; of
these I can take whom I will and marry her. Many a time was I minded
when at home in Phthia to woo and wed a woman who would make me a
suitable wife, and to enjoy the riches of my old father Peleus. My life
is more to me than all the wealth of Ilius while it was yet at peace
before the Achaeans went there, or than all the treasure that lies on
the stone floor of Apollo's temple beneath the cliffs of Pytho. Cattle
and sheep are to be had for harrying, and a man buy both tripods and
horses if he wants them, but when his life has once left him it can
neither be bought nor harried back again.

"My mother Thetis tells me that there are two ways in which I may meet
my end. If I stay here and fight, I shall not return alive but my name
will live for ever: whereas if I go home my name will die, but it will
be long ere death shall take me. To the rest of you, then, I say, 'Go
home, for you will not take Ilius.' Jove has held his hand over her to
protect her, and her people have taken heart. Go, therefore, as in duty
bound, and tell the princes of the Achaeans the message that I have
sent them; tell them to find some other plan for the saving of their
ships and people, for so long as my displeasure lasts the one that they
have now hit upon may not be. As for Phoenix, let him sleep here that
he may sail with me in the morning if he so will. But I will not take
him by force."

They all held their peace, dismayed at the sternness with which he had
denied them, till presently the old knight Phoenix in his great fear
for the ships of the Achaeans, burst into tears and said, "Noble
Achilles, if you are now minded to return, and in the fierceness of
your anger will do nothing to save the ships from burning, how, my son,
can I remain here without you? Your father Peleus bade me go with you
when he sent you as a mere lad from Phthia to Agamemnon. You knew
nothing neither of war nor of the arts whereby men make their mark in
council, and he sent me with you to train you in all excellence of
speech and action. Therefore, my son, I will not stay here without
you--no, not though heaven itself vouchsafe to strip my years from off
me, and make me young as I was when I first left Hellas the land of
fair women. I was then flying the anger of father Amyntor, son of
Ormenus, who was furious with me in the matter of his concubine, of
whom he was enamoured to the wronging of his wife my mother. My mother,
therefore, prayed me without ceasing to lie with the woman myself, that
so she hate my father, and in the course of time I yielded. But my
father soon came to know, and cursed me bitterly, calling the dread
Erinyes to witness. He prayed that no son of mine might ever sit upon
knees--and the gods, Jove of the world below and awful Proserpine,
fulfilled his curse. I took counsel to kill him, but some god stayed my
rashness and bade me think on men's evil tongues and how I should be
branded as the murderer of my father; nevertheless I could not bear to
stay in my father's house with him so bitter a against me. My cousins
and clansmen came about me, and pressed me sorely to remain; many a
sheep and many an ox did they slaughter, and many a fat hog did they
set down to roast before the fire; many a jar, too, did they broach of
my father's wine. Nine whole nights did they set a guard over me taking
it in turns to watch, and they kept a fire always burning, both in the
cloister of the outer court and in the inner court at the doors of the
room wherein I lay; but when the darkness of the tenth night came, I
broke through the closed doors of my room, and climbed the wall of the
outer court after passing quickly and unperceived through the men on
guard and the women servants. I then fled through Hellas till I came to
fertile Phthia, mother of sheep, and to King Peleus, who made me
welcome and treated me as a father treats an only son who will be heir
to all his wealth. He made me rich and set me over much people,
establishing me on the borders of Phthia where I was chief ruler over
the Dolopians.

"It was I, Achilles, who had the making of you; I loved you with all my
heart: for you would eat neither at home nor when you had gone out
elsewhere, till I had first set you upon my knees, cut up the dainty
morsel that you were to eat, and held the wine-cup to your lips. Many a
time have you slobbered your wine in baby helplessness over my shirt; I
had infinite trouble with you, but I knew that heaven had vouchsafed me
no offspring of my own, and I made a son of you, Achilles, that in my
hour of need you might protect me. Now, therefore, I say battle with
your pride and beat it; cherish not your anger for ever; the might and
majesty of heaven are more than ours, but even heaven may be appeased;
and if a man has sinned he prays the gods, and reconciles them to
himself by his piteous cries and by frankincense, with drink-offerings
and the savour of burnt sacrifice. For prayers are as daughters to
great Jove; halt, wrinkled, with eyes askance, they follow in the
footsteps of sin, who, being fierce and fleet of foot, leaves them far
behind him, and ever baneful to mankind outstrips them even to the ends
of the world; but nevertheless the prayers come hobbling and healing
after. If a man has pity upon these daughters of Jove when they draw
near him, they will bless him and hear him too when he is praying; but
if he deny them and will not listen to them, they go to Jove the son of
Saturn and pray that he may presently fall into sin--to his ruing
bitterly hereafter. Therefore, Achilles, give these daughters of Jove
due reverence, and bow before them as all good men will bow. Were not
the son of Atreus offering you gifts and promising others later--if he
were still furious and implacable--I am not he that would bid you throw
off your anger and help the Achaeans, no matter how great their need;
but he is giving much now, and more hereafter; he has sent his captains
to urge his suit, and has chosen those who of all the Argives are most
acceptable to you; make not then their words and their coming to be of
none effect. Your anger has been righteous so far. We have heard in
song how heroes of old time quarrelled when they were roused to fury,
but still they could be won by gifts, and fair words could soothe them.

"I have an old story in my mind--a very old one--but you are all
friends and I will tell it. The Curetes and the Aetolians were fighting
and killing one another round Calydon--the Aetolians defending the city
and the Curetes trying to destroy it. For Diana of the golden throne
was angry and did them hurt because Oeneus had not offered her his
harvest first-fruits. The other gods had all been feasted with
hecatombs, but to the daughter of great Jove alone he had made no
sacrifice. He had forgotten her, or somehow or other it had escaped
him, and this was a grievous sin. Thereon the archer goddess in her
displeasure sent a prodigious creature against him--a savage wild boar
with great white tusks that did much harm to his orchard lands,
uprooting apple-trees in full bloom and throwing them to the ground.
But Meleager son of