The Iliad and the Odyssey (Classics of World Literature) by Homer

Author:Homer [Homer]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wordsworth Editions Ltd
Published: 2012-04-30T20:00:00+00:00

The end of the twenty-first book

Book 22

The Argument

All Trojans hous’d but Hector, only he

Keeps field, and undergoes th’ extremity.

Aeacides assaulting, Hector flies.

Minerva stays him: he resists, and dies;

Achilles to his chariot doth enforce,

And to the naval station drags his corse.

Another Argument

Hector in Chi to death is done

By pow’r of Peleus’ angry son.

Book 22

Thus (chas’d like hinds) the Ilians took time to drink and eat,

And to refresh them, getting off the mingled dust and sweat,

And good strong rampires on instead. The Greeks then cast their shields

Aloft their shoulders; and now Fate their near invasion yields

Of those tough walls, her deadly hand compelling Hector’s stay

Before Troy at the Scaean ports. Achilles still made way

At Phoebus, who his bright head turn’d, and ask’d: ‘Why, Peleus’ son,

Pursu’st thou (being a man) a god? Thy rage hath never done.

Acknowledge not thine eyes my state? Esteems thy mind no more

Thy honour in the chase of Troy, but puts my chase before

Their utter conquest? They are all now hous’d in Ilion,

While thou hunt’st me. What wishest thou? My blood will never run

On thy proud javelin.’ ‘It is thou,’ replied Aeacides,

‘That putt’st dishonour thus on me, thou worst of deities;

Thou turnd’st me from the walls, whose ports had never entertain’d

Numbers now enter’d, over whom thy saving hand hath reign’d,

And robb’d my honour. And all is, since all thy actions stand

Past fear of reckoning: but held I the measure in my hand,

It should afford thee dear-bought scapes.’ Thus with elated spirits

(Steed-like, that at Olympus’ games wears garlands for his merits,

And rattles home his chariot, extending all his pride)

Achilles so parts with the god. When aged Priam spied

The great Greek come, spher’d round with beams, and show’ng as if the star

Surnam’d Orion’s hound, that springs in autumn, and sends far

His radiance through a world of stars, of all whose beams his own

Cast greatest splendour, the midnight that renders them most shown

Then being their foil, and on their points cure-passing fevers then

Come shaking down into the joints of miserable men –

As this were fall’n to earth, and shot along the field his rays

Now towards Priam (which he saw in great Aeacides),

Out flew his tender voice in shrieks, and with rais’d hands he smit

His rev’rend head, then up to heav’n he cast them, showing it

What plagues it sent him; down again then threw them to his son,

To make him shun them. He now stood without steep Ilion,

Thirsting the combat; and to him thus miserably cried

The kind old king: ‘O Hector! Fly this man, this homicide,

That straight will ’stroy thee. He’s too strong, and would to heav’n he were

As strong in heav’n’s love as in mine. Vultures and dogs should tear

His prostrate carcass, all my woes quench’d with his bloody spirits.

He has robb’d me of many sons, and worthy, and their merits

Sold to far islands: two of them (aye me!) I miss but now,

They are not enter’d, nor stay here. Laothoë, O ’twas thou,

O queen of women, from whose womb they breath’d. O did the tents

Detain them only, brass and gold would purchase safe events

To their sad durance: ’tis within.

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