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

must be at hand. May I never live to hear it, but I
greatly fear that Achilles has cut off the retreat of brave Hector and
has chased him on to the plain where he was singlehanded; I fear he may
have put an end to the reckless daring which possessed my husband, who
would never remain with the body of his men, but would dash on far in
front, foremost of them all in valour."

Her heart beat fast, and as she spoke she flew from the house like a
maniac, with her waiting-women following after. When she reached the
battlements and the crowd of people, she stood looking out upon the
wall, and saw Hector being borne away in front of the city--the horses
dragging him without heed or care over the ground towards the ships of
the Achaeans. Her eyes were then shrouded as with the darkness of night
and she fell fainting backwards. She tore the attiring from her head
and flung it from her, the frontlet and net with its plaited band, and
the veil which golden Venus had given her on the day when Hector took
her with him from the house of Eetion, after having given countless
gifts of wooing for her sake. Her husband's sisters and the wives of
his brothers crowded round her and supported her, for she was fain to
die in her distraction; when she again presently breathed and came to
herself, she sobbed and made lament among the Trojans saying, "Woe is
me, O Hector; woe, indeed, that to share a common lot we were born, you
at Troy in the house of Priam, and I at Thebes under the wooded
mountain of Placus in the house of Eetion who brought me up when I was
a child--ill-starred sire of an ill-starred daughter--would that he had
never begotten me. You are now going into the house of Hades under the
secret places of the earth, and you leave me a sorrowing widow in your
house. The child, of whom you and I are the unhappy parents, is as yet
a mere infant. Now that you are gone, O Hector, you can do nothing for
him nor he for you. Even though he escape the horrors of this woeful
war with the Achaeans, yet shall his life henceforth be one of labour
and sorrow, for others will seize his lands. The day that robs a child
of his parents severs him from his own kind; his head is bowed, his
cheeks are wet with tears, and he will go about destitute among the
friends of his father, plucking one by the cloak and another by the
shirt. Some one or other of these may so far pity him as to hold the
cup for a moment towards him and let him moisten his lips, but he must
not drink enough to wet the roof of his mouth; then one whose parents
are alive will drive him from the table with blows and angry words.
'Out with you,' he will say, 'you have no father here,' and the child
will go crying back to his widowed mother--he, Astyanax, who erewhile
would sit upon his father's knees, and have none but the daintiest and
choicest morsels set before him. When he had played till he was tired
and went to sleep, he would lie in a bed, in the arms of his nurse, on
a soft couch, knowing neither want nor care, whereas now that he has
lost his father his lot will be full of hardship--he, whom the Trojans
name Astyanax, because you, O Hector, were the only defence of their
gates and battlements. The wriggling writhing worms will now eat you at
the ships, far from your parents, when the dogs have glutted themselves
upon you. You will lie naked, although in your house you have fine and
goodly raiment made by hands of women. This will I now burn; it is of
no use to you, for you can never again wear it, and thus you will have
respect shown you by the Trojans both men and women."

In such wise did she cry aloud amid her tears, and the women joined in
her lament.


BOOK XXIII

The funeral of Patroclus, and the funeral games.

Thus did they make their moan throughout the city, while the Achaeans
when they reached the Hellespont went back every man to his own ship.
But Achilles would not let the Myrmidons go, and spoke to his brave
comrades saying, "Myrmidons, famed horsemen and my own trusted friends,
not yet, forsooth, let us unyoke, but with horse and chariot draw near
to the body and mourn Patroclus, in due honour to the dead. When we
have had full comfort of lamentation we will unyoke our horses and take
supper all of us here."

On this they all joined in a cry of wailing and Achilles led them in
their lament. Thrice did they drive their chariots all sorrowing round
the body, and Thetis stirred within them a still deeper yearning. The
sands of the seashore and the men's armour were wet with their weeping,
so great a minister of fear was he whom they had lost. Chief in all
their mourning was the son of Peleus: he laid his bloodstained hand on
the breast of his friend. "Fare well," he cried, "Patroclus, even in
the house of Hades. I will now do all that I erewhile promised you; I
will drag Hector hither and let dogs devour him raw; twelve noble sons
of Trojans will I also slay before your pyre to avenge you."

As he spoke he treated the body of noble Hector with contumely, laying
it at full length in the dust beside the bier of Patroclus. The others
then put off every man his armour, took the horses from their chariots,
and seated themselves in great multitude by the ship of the fleet
descendant of Aeacus, who thereon feasted them with an abundant funeral
banquet. Many a goodly ox, with many a sheep and bleating goat did they
butcher and cut up; many a tusked boar moreover, fat and well-fed, did
they singe and set to roast in the flames of Vulcan; and rivulets of
blood flowed all round the place where the body was lying.

Then the princes of the Achaeans took the son of Peleus to Agamemnon,
but hardly could they persuade him to come with them, so wroth was he
for the death of his comrade. As soon as they reached Agamemnon's tent
they told the serving-men to set a large tripod over the fire in case
they might persuade the son of Peleus to wash the clotted gore from
this body, but he denied them sternly, and swore it with a solemn oath,
saying, "Nay, by King Jove, first and mightiest of all gods, it is not
meet that water should touch my body, till I have laid Patroclus on the
flames, have built him a barrow, and shaved my head--for so long as I
live no such second sorrow shall ever draw nigh me. Now, therefore, let
us do all that this sad festival demands, but at break of day, King
Agamemnon, bid your men bring wood, and provide all else that the dead
may duly take into the realm of darkness; the fire shall thus burn him
out of our sight the sooner, and the people shall turn again to their
own labours."

Thus did he speak, and they did even as he had said. They made haste to
prepare the meal, they ate, and every man had his full share so that
all were satisfied. As soon as they had had enough to eat and drink,
the others went to their rest each in his own tent, but the son of
Peleus lay grieving among his Myrmidons by the shore of the sounding
sea, in an open place where the waves came surging in one after
another. Here a very deep slumber took hold upon him and eased the
burden of his sorrows, for his limbs were weary with chasing Hector
round windy Ilius. Presently the sad spirit of Patroclus drew near him,
like what he had been in stature, voice, and the light of his beaming
eyes, clad, too, as he had been clad in life. The spirit hovered over
his head and said--

"You sleep, Achilles, and have forgotten me; you loved me living, but
now that I am dead you think for me no further. Bury me with all speed
that I may pass the gates of Hades; the ghosts, vain shadows of men
that can labour no more, drive me away from them; they will not yet
suffer me to join those that are beyond the river, and I wander all
desolate by the wide gates of the house of Hades. Give me now your hand
I pray you, for when you have once given me my dues of fire, never
shall I again come forth out of the house of Hades. Nevermore shall we
sit apart and take sweet counsel among the living; the cruel fate which
was my birth-right has yawned its wide jaws around me--nay, you too
Achilles, peer of gods, are doomed to die beneath the wall of the noble
Trojans.

"One prayer more will I make you, if you will grant it; let not my
bones be laid apart from yours, Achilles, but with them; even as we
were brought up together in your own home, what time Menoetius brought
me to you as a child from Opoeis because by a sad spite I had killed
the son of Amphidamas--not of set purpose, but in childish quarrel over
the dice. The knight Peleus took me into his house, entreated me
kindly, and named me to be your squire; therefore let our bones lie in
but a single urn, the two-handled golden vase given to you by your
mother."

And Achilles answered, "Why, true heart, are you come hither to lay
these charges upon me? I will of my own self do all as you have bidden
me. Draw closer to me, let us once more throw our arms around one
another, and find sad comfort in the sharing of our sorrows."

He opened his arms towards him as he spoke and would have clasped him
in them, but there was nothing, and the spirit vanished as a vapour,
gibbering and whining into the earth. Achilles sprang to his feet,
smote his two hands, and made lamentation saying, "Of a truth even in
the house of Hades there are ghosts and phantoms that have no life in
them; all night long the sad spirit of Patroclus has hovered over head
making piteous moan, telling me what I am to do for him, and looking
wondrously like himself."

Thus did he speak and his words set them all weeping and mourning about
the poor dumb dead, till rosy-fingered morn appeared. Then King
Agamemnon sent men and mules from all parts of the camp, to bring wood,
and Meriones, squire to Idomeneus, was in charge over them. They went
out with woodmen's axes and strong ropes in their hands, and before
them went the mules. Up hill and down dale did they go, by straight
ways and crooked, and when they reached the heights of many-fountained
Ida, they laid their axes to the roots of many a tall branching oak
that came thundering down as they felled it. They split the trees and
bound them behind the mules, which then wended their way as they best
could through the thick brushwood on to the plain. All who had been
cutting wood bore logs, for so Meriones squire to Idomeneus had bidden
them, and they threw them down in a line upon the seashore at the place
where Achilles would make