The Iliad of Homer, Homer [reading fiction TXT] 📗

upon the ground, lay stretched out, but the black blood flowed out, and moistened the earth. Then Achilles, seizing him by the foot, threw him into the river, to be carried along, and, boasting, spoke winged words:

"Lie there now with the fishes, 673 which, without concern, will lap the blood of thy wound; nor shall thy mother 674 weep, placing thee upon the funeral couch, but the eddying Scamander shall bear thee into the wide bosom of the ocean. Some fish, bounding through the wave, will escape to the dark ripple, 675 in order that he may devour the white fat of Lycaon. Perish [ye Trojans], till we attain to the city of sacred Ilium, you flying, and I slaughtering in the rear: nor shall the wide-flowing, silver-eddying river, profit you, to which ye have already sacrificed many bulls, and cast solid-hoofed steeds alive into its eddies. But even thus shall ye die an evil death, until ye all atone for the death of Patroclus, and the slaughter of the Greeks, whom ye have killed at the swift ships, I being absent."

Footnote 673:(return) Cf. Virg. Æn. x. 555, sqq.; Longus, ii. 20: Άλλὰ βορὰν [ύμᾶς] ίχθύων θήσω καταδύσας. Footnote 674:(return) Cf. Soph. Electr. 1138, sqq. with my note. Footnote 675:(return) I.e. the surface.

Thus he spoke; but the River was the more enraged at heart, and revolved in his mind how he might make noble Achilles cease from labour, and avert destruction from the Trojans. But meanwhile the son of Peleus, holding his long-shadowed spear, leaped upon Asteropæus, son of Pelegon, desirous to kill him whom the wide-flowing Axius begat, and Peribœa, eldest of the daughters of Accessamenus; for with her had the deep-eddying river been mingled. Against him Achilles rushed; but he, [emerging] from the river, stood opposite, holding two spears; for Xanthus had placed courage in his mind, because he was enraged on account of the youths slain in battle, whom Achilles had slain in the stream, nor pitied them. But when they were now near, advancing towards each other, him first swift-footed, noble Achilles addressed:

"Who, and whence art thou of men, thou who darest to come against me? Truly they are the sons of unhappy men who encounter my might." Him again the illustrious son of Pelegon addressed: "O magnanimous son of Peleus, why dost thou ask my race? I am from fruitful Pæonia, being far off, leading the long-speared Pæonian heroes; and this is now the eleventh morning to me since I came to Troy. But my descent is from the wide-flowing Axius, who pours the fairest flood upon the earth, he who begat Pelegon, renowned for the spear; who, men say, begat me. But now, O illustrious Achilles, let us fight."

Thus he spake, threatening: but noble Achilles raised the Pelian ash; but the hero Asteropæus [took aim] with both spears at the same time, 676 for he was ambidexter. 677 With the one spear he struck the shield, nor did it pierce the shield completely through; for the gold restrained it, the gift of a god; and the other slightly wounded him upon the elbow of the right arm; and the black blood gushed out: but the [spear passing] over him, was fixed in the earth, longing to satiate itself with his body. But second Achilles hurled his straight-flying ashen spear at Asteropæus, anxiously desiring to slay him. From him indeed he erred, and struck the lofty bank, and drove the ashen spear up to the middle in the bank. Then the son of Peleus, drawing his sharp sword from his thigh, eagerly leaped upon him; but he was not able to pluck out, with his strong hand, the ashen spear of Achilles, from the bank. Thrice, indeed, he shook it, desiring to pluck it out, and thrice he failed in strength. And the fourth time he had determined in his mind, bending, to snap the ashen spear of Æacides; but Achilles first, close at hand, took away his life with the sword; for he smote him upon the belly at the navel, and all his bowels were poured out upon the ground, and darkness veiled him, dying, as to his eyes. Then Achilles, leaping upon his breast, despoiled him of his arms, and boasting, spoke:

Footnote 676:(return) Ἁμαρτῇ is here an adverb. Footnote 677:(return) Symmachus, Epist. ix. 105: "Pari nitore atque gravitate senatorias actiones et Romanæ rei monumenta limasti, ut plane Homerica appellatione περιδέξιον, id est, æquimanum, te esse pronunciem."

"Lie so: it is a difficult thing for thee, though descended from a River, to contend with the sons of the most mighty Saturnian [Jove]. Thou saidst thou wert of the race of a wide-flowing River, but I boast myself to be of the race of mighty Jove. The hero ruling over many Myrmidons begat me, Peleus, son of Æacus; but Æacus was from Jove; wherefore Jove is more powerful than Rivers flowing into the sea, and the race of Jove again is more powerful than that of a river. Besides, a very great River is at hand to thee, if it can aught defend thee; but it is not lawful to fight with Jove, the son of Saturn. With him neither does king Acheloüs vie, nor the mighty strength of deep-flowing Oceanus, from which flow all rivers, and every sea, and all fountains, and deep wells; but even he dreads the bolt of the great Jove, and the dreadful thunder, when it bellows from heaven."

He said, and plucked his brazen spear from the bank. But him he left there, after he had taken away his life, lying in the sand, and the dark water laved him. About him, indeed, the eels and fishes were busied, eating [and] nibbling the fat around his kidneys. But he (Achilles) hastened to go against the Pæonian equestrian warriors, who were already turned to flight beside the eddying river, when they saw the bravest in the violent conflict bravely subdued by the hands and sword of the son of Peleus. Then he slew Thersilochus, Mydon, Astypylus, Mnesus, Thrasius, Ænius, and Ophelestes. And now had swift Achilles slain even more Pæonians, had not the deep-eddying River, enraged, addressed him, likening itself to a man, and uttered a voice from its deep vortex:

"O Achilles, thou excellest, it is true, in strength, but thou doest unworthy acts above [others], for the gods themselves always aid thee. If indeed the son of Saturn has granted to thee to destroy all the Trojans, at least having driven them from me, perform these arduous enterprises along the plain. For now are my agreeable streams full of dead bodies, nor can I any longer pour my tide into the vast sea, choked up by the dead; whilst thou slayest unsparingly. But come, even cease--a stupor seizes me--O chieftain of the people."

But him swift-footed Achilles, answering, addressed:

"These things shall be as thou desirest, O Jove-nurtured Scamander. But I will not cease slaughtering the treaty-breaking 678 Trojans, before that I enclose them in the city, and make trial of Hector, face to face, whether he shall slay me, or I him."

Footnote 678:(return) Although this meaning of ύπερφίαλος is well suited to this passage, yet Buttmann, Lexil. p. 616, § 6, is against any such particular explanation of the word. See his whole dissertation.

Thus speaking, he rushed upon the Trojans like unto a god; and the deep-eddying River then addressed Apollo:

"Alas! O god of the silver bow, child of Jove, thou hast not observed the counsels of Jove, who very much enjoined thee to stand by and aid the Trojans, till the late setting evening 679 sun should come, and overshadow the fruitful earth."

Footnote 679:(return) Δείελος has been shown by Buttmann to be really the afternoon; but he observes, p. 223, that in the present passage, "it is not the Attic δείλη ὀψία, with which it has been compared, but by the force of δύων, the actual sunset of evening. The ὀψέ is therefore, strictly speaking, redundant, and appears to be used with reference only to the time past, something in this way: 'Thou shouldst assist the Trojans until the sun sinks late in the west.'"

He spoke, and spear-renowned Achilles leaped into the midst, rushing down from the bank. But he (the River) rushed on, raging with a swoln flood, and, turbid, excited all his waves. And it pushed along the numerous corpses, which were in him 680 in abundance, whom Achilles had slain. These he cast out, roaring like a bull, upon the shore; but the living he preserved in his fair streams, concealing them among his mighty deep gulfs. And terrible around Achilles stood the disturbed wave, and the stream, falling upon his shield, oppressed him, nor could he stand steady on his feet. But he seized with his hands a thriving, large elm; and it, falling from its roots, dislodged the whole bank, and interrupted the beautiful streams with its thick branches, and bridged over the river itself, 681 falling completely in. Then leaping up from the gulf, he hastened to fly over the plain on his rapid feet, terrified. Nor yet did the mighty god desist, but rushed after him, blackening on the surface, that he might make noble Achilles cease from toil, and avert destruction from the Trojans. But the son of Peleus leaped back as far as is the cast of a spear, having the impetuosity of a dark eagle, a hunter, which is at once the strongest and the swiftest of birds. Like unto it he rushed, but the brass clanked dreadfully upon his breast; but he, inclining obliquely, fled from it, and it, flowing from behind, followed with a mighty noise. As when a ditch-worker leads a stream of water from a black-flowing fountain through plantations and gardens, holding a spade in his hands, and throwing out the obstructions from the channel; all the pebbles beneath are agitated as it flows along, and, rapidly descending, it murmurs down a sloping declivity, and outstrips even him who directs it: so the water of the river always overtook Achilles, though being nimble; for the gods are more powerful than mortals. As often as swift-footed, noble Achilles attempted to oppose it, and to know whether all the immortals who possess the wide heaven put him to flight, so often did a great billow of the river, flowing from Jove, lave his shoulders from above; whilst he leaped up with his feet, sad in mind, and the rapid stream subdued his knees under him, and withdrew the sand from beneath his feet. But Pelides groaned, looking toward the wide heaven:

Footnote 680:(return) I.e. in the river. One translator absurdly renders it "through him," i.e. through Achilles. Footnote 681:(return) "The circumstance of a fallen tree, which is by Homer described as reaching from one of its banks to the other, affords a very just idea of the breadth of the Scamander at the season when we saw it."--Wood on Homer, p. 328.

"O father Jove, how does none of the gods undertake to save me, miserable, from the river! Hereafter, indeed, I would suffer anything. 682 But no other of the heavenly inhabitants is so culpable to me as my mother, who soothed me with falsehoods, and said that I should perish by the fleet arrows of Apollo, under the wall of the armed Trojans. Would that Hector had slain me, who here was nurtured the bravest; then a brave man would he have slain, and have despoiled a