The Iliad by Homer

Author:Homer
Format: azw, azw3, epub, mobi, pdf
Published: 2009-12-08T23:00:00+00:00

BOOK XV

The Achaeans Desperate

When the Trojans had scrambled through trench and sharp

stakes, and many

Had died at the hands of the Danaans, terrified still

They came to a halt beside their chariots, their faces

A ghastly pale olive with fear. And Zeus woke up

Where he lay beside golden-throned Hera, high on a peak

Of Mount Ida. At once he sprang up and saw what was happening,

Trojans chaotically fleeing and Argives pursuing,

With lord Poseidon among them. And then he saw Hector

Stretched on the plain with his comrades sitting around him,

Great Hector gasping for breath, half conscious, and vomiting

Blood, for it was by no means the feeblest Achaean

Of all who had dealt him the blow. Seeing him thus,

The Father of gods and men felt compassion for him,

And sternly scowling at Hera he spoke to her, saying:

“Hera, impossible goddess! surely your own

Evil tricks have put noble Hector out of the action

And driven the host in retreat. Truly I do not

Know but that you shall yet be the first to reap

The fruits of your miserable malice and plotting—when I

Put stripes on you with a whip! Can it be that you’ve really

Forgotten when I hung you high with an anvil suspended

From each of your ankles and a band of unbreakable gold

About your wrists? And you hung far up in the air

Among the clouds, and the gods throughout high Olympus,

Though greatly indignant, were none of them able to get

Close to you and release you. And any of them I got hold of

I seized and hurled from my threshold, so that when he reached earth

He just lay there too weak to move. Even so, my heart

Still hurt for godlike Heracles, whom you, in league

With the blasting North Wind, had sent in accord with your evil

Contriving far over the barren and unresting sea

To the populous island of Cos. Him I brought back

From there, safe to horse-pasturing Argos, though only

After his toils had been many and painful. Of this

I remind you once more to put an end to your wiles

And make you see how little real good it does you

To come here apart from the other immortals and subtly

Seduce me to lie with you and make love.”1 1

At this

The heifer-eyed queenly Hera shuddered, and answered

In these winged words: “Now then, to this let earth

Be my witness and broad heaven above and the tumbledown waters

Of subterranean Styx—which to the gods

Is the oath most great and terrible-and your own divine head

And the marriage bed of us both, by which I would never

Swear falsely, that it is by no will of mine that Poseidon,

Creator of earthquakes, does damage to Trojans and Hector

And nothing but good for their foes.2 I think that he saw

The Achaeans worn out and despairing beside their vessels

And pitied them so much that his own soul urged him and told him

To help. But to you, 0 god of the gathering storm,

I say I myself would counsel Poseidon to go

Wherever you told him to go.”

She spoke, and the Father

Of gods and men smiled, and answered in these winged words:

“If truly, 0 heifer-eyed queenly Hera,

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