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

and answered, "Vulcan, is there another goddess in Olympus
whom the son of Saturn has been pleased to try with so much affliction
as he has me? Me alone of the marine goddesses did he make subject to a
mortal husband, Peleus son of Aeacus, and sorely against my will did I
submit to the embraces of one who was but mortal, and who now stays at
home worn out with age. Neither is this all. Heaven vouchsafed me a
son, hero among heroes, and he shot up as a sapling. I tended him as a
plant in a goodly garden and sent him with his ships to Ilius to fight
the Trojans, but never shall I welcome him back to the house of Peleus.
So long as he lives to look upon the light of the sun, he is in
heaviness, and though I go to him I cannot help him; King Agamemnon has
made him give up the maiden whom the sons of the Achaeans had awarded
him, and he wastes with sorrow for her sake. Then the Trojans hemmed
the Achaeans in at their ships' sterns and would not let them come
forth; the elders, therefore, of the Argives besought Achilles and
offered him great treasure, whereon he refused to bring deliverance to
them himself, but put his own armour on Patroclus and sent him into the
fight with much people after him. All day long they fought by the
Scaean gates and would have taken the city there and then, had not
Apollo vouchsafed glory to Hector and slain the valiant son of
Menoetius after he had done the Trojans much evil. Therefore I am
suppliant at your knees if haply you may be pleased to provide my son,
whose end is near at hand, with helmet and shield, with goodly greaves
fitted with ancle-clasps, and with a breastplate, for he lost his own
when his true comrade fell at the hands of the Trojans, and he now lies
stretched on earth in the bitterness of his soul."

And Vulcan answered, "Take heart, and be no more disquieted about this
matter; would that I could hide him from death's sight when his hour is
come, so surely as I can find him armour that shall amaze the eyes of
all who behold it."

When he had so said he left her and went to his bellows, turning them
towards the fire and bidding them do their office. Twenty bellows blew
upon the melting-pots, and they blew blasts of every kind, some fierce
to help him when he had need of them, and others less strong as Vulcan
willed it in the course of his work. He threw tough copper into the
fire, and tin, with silver and gold; he set his great anvil on its
block, and with one hand grasped his mighty hammer while he took the
tongs in the other.

First he shaped the shield so great and strong, adorning it all over
and binding it round with a gleaming circuit in three layers; and the
baldric was made of silver. He made the shield in five thicknesses, and
with many a wonder did his cunning hand enrich it.

He wrought the earth, the heavens, and the sea; the moon also at her
full and the untiring sun, with all the signs that glorify the face of
heaven--the Pleiads, the Hyads, huge Orion, and the Bear, which men
also call the Wain and which turns round ever in one place, facing
Orion, and alone never dips into the stream of Oceanus.

He wrought also two cities, fair to see and busy with the hum of men.
In the one were weddings and wedding-feasts, and they were going about
the city with brides whom they were escorting by torchlight from their
chambers. Loud rose the cry of Hymen, and the youths danced to the
music of flute and lyre, while the women stood each at her house door
to see them.

Meanwhile the people were gathered in assembly, for there was a
quarrel, and two men were wrangling about the blood-money for a man who
had been killed, the one saying before the people that he had paid
damages in full, and the other that he had not been paid. Each was
trying to make his own case good, and the people took sides, each man
backing the side that he had taken; but the heralds kept them back, and
the elders sate on their seats of stone in a solemn circle, holding the
staves which the heralds had put into their hands. Then they rose and
each in his turn gave judgement, and there were two talents laid down,
to be given to him whose judgement should be deemed the fairest.

About the other city there lay encamped two hosts in gleaming armour,
and they were divided whether to sack it, or to spare it and accept the
half of what it contained. But the men of the city would not yet
consent, and armed themselves for a surprise; their wives and little
children kept guard upon the walls, and with them were the men who were
past fighting through age; but the others sallied forth with Mars and
Pallas Minerva at their head--both of them wrought in gold and clad in
golden raiment, great and fair with their armour as befitting gods,
while they that followed were smaller. When they reached the place
where they would lay their ambush, it was on a riverbed to which live
stock of all kinds would come from far and near to water; here, then,
they lay concealed, clad in full armour. Some way off them there were
two scouts who were on the look-out for the coming of sheep or cattle,
which presently came, followed by two shepherds who were playing on
their pipes, and had not so much as a thought of danger. When those who
were in ambush saw this, they cut off the flocks and herds and killed
the shepherds. Meanwhile the besiegers, when they heard much noise
among the cattle as they sat in council, sprang to their horses, and
made with all speed towards them; when they reached them they set
battle in array by the banks of the river, and the hosts aimed their
bronze-shod spears at one another. With them were Strife and Riot, and
fell Fate who was dragging three men after her, one with a fresh wound,
and the other unwounded, while the third was dead, and she was dragging
him along by his heel: and her robe was bedrabbled in men's blood. They
went in and out with one another and fought as though they were living
people haling away one another's dead.

He wrought also a fair fallow field, large and thrice ploughed already.
Many men were working at the plough within it, turning their oxen to
and fro, furrow after furrow. Each time that they turned on reaching
the headland a man would come up to them and give them a cup of wine,
and they would go back to their furrows looking forward to the time
when they should again reach the headland. The part that they had
ploughed was dark behind them, so that the field, though it was of
gold, still looked as if it were being ploughed--very curious to behold.

He wrought also a field of harvest corn, and the reapers were reaping
with sharp sickles in their hands. Swathe after swathe fell to the
ground in a straight line behind them, and the binders bound them in
bands of twisted straw. There were three binders, and behind them there
were boys who gathered the cut corn in armfuls and kept on bringing
them to be bound: among them all the owner of the land stood by in
silence and was glad. The servants were getting a meal ready under an
oak, for they had sacrificed a great ox, and were busy cutting him up,
while the women were making a porridge of much white barley for the
labourers' dinner.

He wrought also a vineyard, golden and fair to see, and the vines were
loaded with grapes. The bunches overhead were black, but the vines were
trained on poles of silver. He ran a ditch of dark metal all round it,
and fenced it with a fence of tin; there was only one path to it, and
by this the vintagers went when they would gather the vintage. Youths
and maidens all blithe and full of glee, carried the luscious fruit in
plaited baskets; and with them there went a boy who made sweet music
with his lyre, and sang the Linos-song with his clear boyish voice.

He wrought also a herd of horned cattle. He made the cows of gold and
tin, and they lowed as they came full speed out of the yards to go and
feed among the waving reeds that grow by the banks of the river. Along
with the cattle there went four shepherds, all of them in gold, and
their nine fleet dogs went with them. Two terrible lions had fastened
on a bellowing bull that was with the foremost cows, and bellow as he
might they haled him, while the dogs and men gave chase: the lions tore
through the bull's thick hide and were gorging on his blood and bowels,
but the herdsmen were afraid to do anything, and only hounded on their
dogs; the dogs dared not fasten on the lions but stood by barking and
keeping out of harm's way.

The god wrought also a pasture in a fair mountain dell, and a large
flock of sheep, with a homestead and huts, and sheltered sheepfolds.

Furthermore he wrought a green, like that which Daedalus once made in
Cnossus for lovely Ariadne. Hereon there danced youths and maidens whom
all would woo, with their hands on one another's wrists. The maidens
wore robes of light linen, and the youths well woven shirts that were
slightly oiled. The girls were crowned with garlands, while the young
men had daggers of gold that hung by silver baldrics; sometimes they
would dance deftly in a ring with merry twinkling feet, as it were a
potter sitting at his work and making trial of his wheel to see whether
it will run, and sometimes they would go all in line with one another,
and much people was gathered joyously about the green. There was a bard
also to sing to them and play his lyre, while two tumblers went about
performing in the midst of them when the man struck up with his tune.

All round the outermost rim of the shield he set the mighty stream of
the river Oceanus.

Then when he had fashioned the shield so great and strong, he made a
breastplate also that shone brighter than fire. He made a helmet, close
fitting to the brow, and richly worked, with a golden plume overhanging
it; and he made greaves also of beaten tin.

Lastly, when the famed lame god had made all the armour, he took it and
set it before the mother of Achilles; whereon she darted like a falcon
from the snowy summits of Olympus and bore away the gleaming armour
from the house of Vulcan.


BOOK XIX

Achilles is reconciled with Agamemnon, puts on the armour
which Vulcan had made him, and goes out to fight.

NOW when Dawn in robe of saffron was hasting from the streams of
Oceanus, to bring light to mortals and immortals, Thetis reached the
ships with the armour that the god had given her. She found her son
fallen about the body of Patroclus and weeping bitterly. Many also of
his followers were weeping round him, but when the goddess came among
them she clasped his hand