The Iliad by Homer & Robert Fagles

Author:Homer & Robert Fagles
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: Fantasy, Classics, Poetry, War
ISBN: 9780670835102
Publisher: Viking
Published: 1990-09-30T23:00:00+00:00

BOOK THIRTEEN: Battling for the Ships

But once Zeus had driven Hector and Hector's Trojans hard against the ships, he left both armies there, milling among the hulls to bear the brunt and wrenching work of war — no end in sight — while Zeus himself, his shining eyes turned north, gazed a world away to the land of Thracian horsemen, the Mysian fighters hand-to-hand and the lordly Hippemolgi who drink the milk of mares, and the Abii, most decent men alive. But not a moment more would he turn his shining eyes to Troy. Zeus never dreamed in his heart a single deathless god would go to war for Troy's or Achaea's forces now.

But the mighty god of earthquakes was not blind. He kept his watch, enthralled by the rush of battle, aloft the summit of timbered Samos facing Thrace. From there the entire Ida ridge swung clear in view, the city of Priam clear and the warships of Achaea. Climbing out of the breakers, there Poseidon sat and pitied the Argives beaten down by Trojan troops and his churning outrage rose against the Father. Suddenly down from the mountain's rocky crags Poseidon stormed with giant, lightning strides and the looming peaks and tall timber quaked beneath his immortal feet as the sea Lord surged on. Three great strides he took, on the fourth he reached his goal, Aegae port where his famous halls are built in the green depths, the shimmering golden halls of the god that stand forever. Down Poseidon dove and yoked his bronze-hoofed horses onto his battle-car, his pair that raced the wind with their golden manes streaming on behind them, and strapping the golden armor round his body, seized his whip that coils lithe and gold and boarded his chariot launching up and out, skimming the waves, and over the swells they came, dolphins leaving their lairs to sport across his wake, leaping left and right — well they knew their Lord. And the sea heaved in joy, cleaving a path for him and the team flew on in a blurring burst of speed, the bronze axle under the war-car never flecked with foam, the stallions vaulting, speeding Poseidon toward Achaea's fleet. There is a vast cave, down in the dark sounding depths, mid-sea between Tenedos and Imbros' rugged cliffs . . . Here the god of the earthquake drove his horses down, he set them free of the yoke and flung before them heaps of ambrosia, fodder for them to graze. Round their hoofs he looped the golden hobbles never broken, never slipped, so there they'd stand, stock-still on the spot to wait their Lord's return and off Poseidon strode to Achaea's vast encampment.

But the Trojans swarmed like flame, like a whirlwind following Hector son of Priam blazing on nonstop, their war cries shattering, crying as one man — their hopes soaring to take the Argive ships and slaughter all their best against the hulls. But the ocean king who grips and shakes the

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