The Iliad of Homer by Richmond Lattimore

Author:Richmond Lattimore
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 2011-10-15T04:00:00+00:00

BOOK FOURTEEN

Now Nestor failed not to hear their outcry, though he was drinking

his wine, but spoke in winged words to the son of Asklepios:

“Take thought how these things shall be done, brilliant Machaon.

Beside the ships the cry of the strong young men grows greater.

5 Now, do you sit here and go on drinking the bright wine,

until Hekamede the lovely-haired makes ready a hot bath

for you, warming it, and washes away the filth of the bloodstains,

while I go out and make my way till I find some watchpoint.”

So he spoke, and took up the wrought shield of his son

10 Thrasymedes, breaker of horses. It lay in the shelter

all shining in bronze. Thrasymedes carried the shield of his father.

Then he caught up a powerful spear edged in sharp bronze

and stood outside the shelter, and at once saw a shameful action,

men driven to flight, and others harrying them in confusion,

15 the great-hearted Trojans, and the wall of the Achaians overthrown.

As when the open sea is deeply stirred to the ground-swell

but stays in one place and waits the rapid onset of tearing

gusts, nor rolls its surf onward in either direction

until from Zeus the wind is driven down to decide it;

20 so the aged man pondered, his mind caught between two courses,

whether to go among the throng of fast-mounted Danaäns

or in search of Atreus’ son Agamemnon, shepherd of the people.

And in the division of his heart this way seemed best to him,

to go after the son of Atreus, while the rest went on with the murderous

25 battle, and the weariless bronze about their bodies was clashing

as the men were stabbing with swords and leaf-headed spears.

Now there came toward Nestor the kings under God’s hand, they who

had been wounded by the bronze and came back along the ships, Tydeus’

son, and Odysseus, and Atreus’ son Agamemnon. For there

30 were ships that had been hauled up far away from the fighting

along the beach of the gray sea. They had hauled up the first ones

on the plain, and by the sterns of these had built their defenses;

for, wide as it was, the seashore was not big enough to make room

for all the ships, and the people also were straitened; and therefore

35 they had hauled them up in depth, and filled up the long edge

of the whole sea-coast, all that the two capes compassed between them.

These lords walked in a group, each leaning on his spear, to look at

the clamorous battle, and for each the heart inside his body

was sorrowful; and Nestor the aged man who now met them

40 made still more cast down the spirit inside the Achaians.

Now powerful Agamemnon spoke aloud and addressed him:

“Nestor, son of Neleus, great glory of the Achaians,

why have you left the fighting where men die, and come back here?

I am afraid huge Hektor may accomplish that word against me

45 that he spoke, threatening, among the Trojans assembled,

that he would not make his way back from the ships toward Ilion

until he had set the ships on fire, and killed the men in them.

So he spoke then; now all these things are being accomplished.

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