The Iliad of Homer

But when at last, distracted in his mind,
Forsook by heaven, forsaking humankind,
Wide o'er the Aleian field he chose to stray,
A long, forlorn, uncomfortable way!^[170]

Woes heap'd on woes consumed his wasted heart:
His beauteous daughter fell by Phoebe's dart;
His eldest born by raging Mars was slain,
In combat on the Solymaean plain.

Hippolochus survived: from him I came,
The honour'd author of my birth and name;
By his decree I sought the Trojan town;
By his instructions learn to win renown,

To stand the first in worth as in command,
To add new honours to my native land,
Before my eyes my mighty sires to place,
And emulate the glories of our race."

He spoke, and transport fill'd Tydides' heart;
In earth the generous warrior fix'd his dart,
Then friendly, thus the Lycian prince address'd:
"Welcome, my brave hereditary guest!

Thus ever let us meet, with kind embrace,
Nor stain the sacred friendship of our race.
Know, chief, our grandsires have been guests of old;
OEneus the strong, Bellerophon the bold:

Our ancient seat his honour'd presence graced,
Where twenty days in genial rites he pass'd.
The parting heroes mutual presents left;
A golden goblet was thy grandsire's gift;

OEneus a belt of matchless work bestowed,
That rich with Tyrian dye refulgent glow'd.
(This from his pledge I learn'd, which, safely stored
Among my treasures, still adorns my board:

For Tydeus left me young, when Thebe's wall
Beheld the sons of Greece untimely fall.)
Mindful of this, in friendship let us join;
If heaven our steps to foreign lands incline,
My guest in Argos thou, and I in Lycia thine.

Enough of Trojans to this lance shall yield,
In the full harvest of yon ample field;
Enough of Greeks shall dye thy spear with gore;
But thou and Diomed be foes no more.

Now change we arms, and prove to either host
We guard the friendship of the line we boast."
Thus having said, the gallant chiefs alight,
Their hands they join, their mutual faith they plight;

Brave Glaucus then each narrow thought resign'd,
(Jove warm'd his bosom, and enlarged his mind,)
For Diomed's brass arms, of mean device,
For which nine oxen paid, (a vulgar price,)

He gave his own, of gold divinely wrought,^[171]
A hundred beeves the shining purchase bought.
Meantime the guardian of the Trojan state,
Great Hector, enter'd at the Scaean gate.^[172]

Beneath the beech–tree's consecrated shades,
The Trojan matrons and the Trojan maids
Around him flock'd, all press'd with pious care
For husbands, brothers, sons, engaged in war.

He bids the train in long procession go,
And seek the gods, to avert the impending woe.
And now to Priam's stately courts he came,
Rais'd on arch'd columns of stupendous frame;

O'er these a range of marble structure runs,
The rich pavilions of his fifty sons,
In fifty chambers lodged: and rooms of state,^[173]
Opposed to those, where Priam's daughters sate.

Twelve domes for them and their loved spouses shone,
Of equal beauty, and of polish'd stone.
Hither great Hector pass'd, nor pass'd unseen
Of royal Hecuba, his mother–queen.

(With her Laodice, whose beauteous face
Surpass'd the nymphs of Troy's illustrious race.)
Long in a strict embrace she held her son,
And press'd his hand, and tender thus begun:

"O Hector! say, what great occasion calls
My son from fight, when Greece surrounds our walls;
Com'st thou to supplicate the almighty power
With lifted hands, from Ilion's lofty tower?

Stay, till I bring the cup with Bacchus crown'd,
In Jove's high name, to sprinkle on the ground,
And pay due vows to all the gods around.
Then with a plenteous draught refresh thy soul,
And draw new spirits from the generous bowl;

Spent as thou art with long laborious fight,
The brave defender of thy country's right."
"Far hence be Bacchus' gifts; (the chief rejoin'd;)
Inflaming wine, pernicious to mankind,
Unnerves the limbs, and dulls the noble mind.

Let chiefs abstain, and spare the sacred juice
To sprinkle to the gods, its better use.
By me that holy office were profaned;
Ill fits it me, with human gore distain'd,

To the pure skies these horrid hands to raise,
Or offer heaven's great Sire polluted praise.
You, with your matrons, go! a spotless train,
And burn rich odours in Minerva's fane.

The largest mantle your full wardrobes hold,
Most prized for art, and labour'd o'er with gold,
Before the goddess' honour'd knees be spread,
And twelve young heifers to her altar led.

So may the power, atoned by fervent prayer,
Our wives, our infants, and our city spare;
And far avert Tydides' wasteful ire,
Who mows whole troops, and makes all Troy retire.

Be this, O mother, your religious care:
I go to rouse soft Paris to the war;
If yet not lost to all the sense of shame,
The recreant warrior hear the voice of fame.

Oh, would kind earth the hateful wretch embrace,
That pest of Troy, that ruin of our race!^[174]
Deep to the dark abyss might he descend,
Troy yet should flourish, and my sorrows end."

This heard, she gave command: and summon'd came
Each noble matron and illustrious dame.
The Phrygian queen to her rich wardrobe went,
Where treasured odours breathed a costly scent.

There lay the vestures of no vulgar art,
Sidonian maids embroider'd every part,
Whom from soft Sidon youthful Paris bore,
With Helen touching on the Tyrian shore.

Here, as the queen revolved with careful eyes
The various textures and the various dyes,
She chose a veil that shone superior far,
And glow'd refulgent as the morning star.

Herself with this the long procession leads;
The train majestically slow proceeds.
Soon as to Ilion's topmost tower they come,
And awful reach the high Palladian dome,

170

From this "melancholy madness" of Bellerophon, hypochondria received the name of "Morbus Bellerophonteus." See my notes in my prose translation, p. 112. The "Aleian field," i.e. "the plain of wandering," was situated between the rivers Pyramus and Pinarus, in Cilicia.

171

—His own, of gold. This bad bargain has passed into a common proverb. See Aulus Gellius, ii, 23.

172

—Scaean, i e. left hand.

173

—In fifty chambers.

"The fifty nuptial beds, (such hopes had he,So large a promise of a progeny,) The ports of plated gold, and hung with spoils."

Dryden's Virgil, ii.658

174

—O would kind earth, etc. "It is apparently a sudden, irregular burst of popular indignation to which Hector alludes, when he regrets that the Trojans had not spirit enough to cover Paris with a mantle of stones. This, however, was also one of the ordinary formal modes of punishment for great public offences. It may have been originally connected with the same feeling—the desire of avoiding the pollution of bloodshed—which seems to have suggested the practice of burying prisoners alive, with a scantling of food by their side. Though Homer makes no mention of this horrible usage, the example of the Roman Vestals affords reasons for believing that, in ascribing it to the heroic ages, Sophocles followed an authentic tradition."—Thirlwall's Greece, vol. i. p. 171, sq.