The Iliad (Trans. Caroline Alexander) by Homer

Author:Homer [Homer]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780062046291
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2016-07-25T00:00:00+00:00

14.ILIÁDOS Ξ

Now the shouting did not escape the notice of Nestor, although he was drinking,

and to the son of Asclepius he addressed winged words:

“Take thought, noble Machaon, how these matters will be;

the battle shouts of our sturdy young men grow greater by the ships.

You now sit and drink the dark-gleaming wine,

until Hekamede of the lovely hair has heated warm water to bathe

and washed away your clotted blood,

and I will go to a watch place and quickly look around.”

So speaking he took up the wrought shield of his son

Thrasymedes breaker of horses, which was lying in his shelter10

shining with bronze—for Thrasymedes was carrying his father’s shield—

and took up a strong spear pointed with sharp bronze.

But outside his shelter he halted, and saw at once the shameful work of war,

men fleeing in rout and, driving them to panic from behind,

the prideful Trojans; and the wall of the Achaeans fallen.

As when the great deep sea shimmers dark with silent swell

foreboding the swift passage of shrill winds

but does not break, rolling neither forward nor aside,

until some fair deciding wind descends from Zeus above,

so the old man deliberated, his heart torn20

two ways, whether to go to the throng of Danaans of swift horses,

or to Agamemnon, son of Atreus and shepherd of the people.

And this to him as he pondered seemed to be best,

to go to the son of Atreus. The fighting men continued to kill

each other; the unwearying bronze rang about their bodies

as they stabbed at one another with their swords and double-edged spears.

Then as they came up from the ships, the kings cherished by Zeus fell in with Nestor,

they who had been wounded by bronze weapons—

the son of Tydeus, Odysseus and Agamemnon son of Atreus;

far from the fighting their ships had been drawn up30

on the shore of the gray salt sea; for they had drawn up the first ships

toward the plain, and built the wall by their sterns.

And indeed wide though it was, the beach could not contain

all the ships, and the host was constrained.

Therefore they had hauled the ships up in ranks, and occupied

the whole of the seashore along the deep bay, all that the headlands enclosed.

So these kings having learned late of the battle crying and fighting

came all together leaning on spears, and the heart in the breast of every man

was anguished; and the old man Nestor fell in with them,

and made the hearts of the Achaeans quail in their breasts.40

And lifting his voice lord Agamemnon addressed him:

“O Nestor son of Neleus, great pride of the Achaeans,

why have you left the fighting that destroys men and made your way here?

I fear lest mighty Hector may fulfill his word against me,

as he once threatened, speaking to the Trojans in assembly,

that he would not go back to Ilion from the ships,

until he had destroyed our ships with fire, and killed the men themselves.

So he spoke in the assembly; now all this has been accomplished.

Alas! Sure it is the other strong-greaved Achaeans too

have set down anger in their heart against me, like Achilles,50

and are not willing to fight by our ships’ sterns.

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