The Iliad

by Homer

Go sit beside him, touch his knees, and ask him 540 to help the Trojans and to trap the Greeks between the ships and salty sea to die,

Give the Trojans power until 510 the Greeks respect my son and grant him glory.”

think you bowed your head and promised you would glorify Achilles, destroying many men beside the ships.”

Disaster has been fastened to the Trojans 70 by Zeus.

But first I shall test them myself with words, as is the custom, and order them to row the fleet away. Meanwhile, you call them from the other side and try to hold them back!”

This, I suppose, must be the will of Zeus, the mighty god who has destroyed so many majestic cities and will ruin more. He has the greatest power. This

Listen, all of you, and do as I suggest. Let us retreat. Let us leave here and sail back to our homes, 140 the native lands we love. We can no longer expect to take the spacious streets of Troy.”

And then the homeward journey of the Greeks would have begun too soon, before due time, if Hera had not spoken to Athena. She said, “This is disastrous! Look, Athena, unwearied child of aegis-bearing Zeus! Those Greeks will sail back home to their own country, riding the broad sea’s back, and leaving Helen 160 for Priam and the Trojans to gloat over! 190 So many Greeks have died for her at Troy, so distant from their own dear native lands. Now mingle with the bronze-clad warrior Greeks and coax each man with mollifying words. They must not drag those curving ships to sea.”

You do not understand what Agamemnon intends to do. This is a test! He will soon smite the sons of Greece if they should fail.

Just as this snake devoured the sparrow and her children, eight of them, their mother making nine, so we will fight this war at Troy for nine years. In the tenth, 400 we take the city with its spacious streets.’ 330 He prophesied and now it all comes true. So you must all stay here, well-armored Greeks, until we sack the mighty town of Priam.”

All these men 150 were now too old for war, but good in council, just as cicadas settle in the trees and fill the woods with sound as sweet as lilies.

“Lord Zeus! Grant that I punish this man who wronged me first, this godlike Paris! Bring him down low beneath my hands, so that all people in the future shrink from harming 440 a host who treated them with love and friendship.”

but Aphrodite, daughter of Zeus, looked down with her keen gaze and broke his oxhide leather helmet strap.

“I love three cities most of all by far— Mycenae with its spacious streets, and Sparta, and Argos.

Our parents are the same. Our crooked father Cronus had me first, and thus I am the eldest of us all.

The Trojans have attacked you! They have trampled the sacred oaths! But it was not for nothing— our vows, the blood of lambs, the pure libations, the clasped right hands in which we put our trust.

Diomedes prayed at that moment in his booming voice, “Hear me, Athena, tireless goddess, child 150 of Zeus who holds the aegis—if you ever favored and stood beside me or my father in deadly war, then also now, Athena, be kind to me.

Laughter-loving Aphrodite answered her, “I was wounded by the son of Tydeus, that arrogant Diomedes, because I took my dear son from the battle— my son Aeneas, whom I love the most of anyone by far. The violent fighting is now no longer Trojans against Greeks. 380 510 The Greeks are fighting the immortal gods!”

And yet when godlike Diomedes tried a fourth attack, aloof Apollo spoke in condemnation. “Son of Tydeus, 440 watch out and get out. Do not think yourself 590 equal to gods. There is no common kinship shared by immortal gods and human beings who walk on earth.”

She longed for conflict and the din of war. Athena, child of Zeus who bears the aegis, 960 slipped off her silky-soft embroidered dress, which she had made herself with her own hands, and dropped it on the threshold where she stood, inside the doorway of her father’s house. She changed into the tunic worn by Zeus, the god who marshals clouds, and armed herself with weapons fit for war, the source of tears. She slung the tasseled aegis round her shoulders— the dreadful aegis, bordered all around 740 with Terror, and on it were Conflict, Courage, 970 and chilling Flight.

The white-armed goddess Hera manifested as spirited Stentor,

Then Diomedes, master of the war cry, attacked. Athena drove his spear of bronze into the lowest part of Ares’ side, right by his belt.

gathering Zeus replied with scowling brows, “Shapeshifter, do not sit with me and whine. Of all the gods who live on Mount Olympus 890 you are the one I hate the most. You always enjoy hostility and war and battle. 1170 You have the spirit of your mother in you, Hera, who will not yield or be controlled, and I can scarcely check her with my words.

That Diomedes is a maniac. No one can stand against his will to fight.”

wife of brilliant Bellerophon bore him three children, named Hippolochus, Isandrus, and Laodamea, whom devious Zeus seduced. She had a son, godlike Sarpedon, fully armed in bronze.

People will say these things in times to come, and so my fame and name will never die.”

Then Zeus who folds the clouds together answered, “Hera, my ox-eyed goddess queen, you shall 470 witness at dawn tomorrow, if you wish, almighty Zeus, the son of Cronus, kill yet more Greek warriors—mass casualties. Powerful Hector will not leave the fighting until Achilles, son of Peleus, rises on swift feet from beside his ships, the day the Greeks are trapped beside their fleet, desperately fighting for the dead Patroclus. 640 Such is divine decree. I do not care how angry you may be.

But crooked Zeus gave you just half a blessing. You got the special status of the scepter, but not the greatest power, which is courage.

So I want 120 to make amends with lavish gifts of friendship.

A man who fights his hardest in the war gets just the same as one who stays behind. Cowards and heroes have the same reward. 320 Do everything or nothing—death still comes.

Was it not to retrieve a woman, Helen? 340 Are they the only men who love their women, those sons of Atreus? All good, fine men love their own women and take care of them,

iron, all my share of war loot. But my own trophy, which he gave himself to me—he took it back from me again! So he insulted me—that mighty leader, that son of Atreus, that Agamemnon. Go tell him my whole answer. Let him hear it 370 in public, so the other Greeks will also get angry with him, just in case he tries to trick another one of us in future.

I hate that man’s gifts and I do not have even a scintilla of respect for him.

To me, no wealth is worth a person’s life.

Now please, Achilles, subdue your pride. Your heart must not remain 640 forever unrelenting. Even gods can change, although they are superior in capability and strength and glory.

When Meleager heard his wife describe these horrors, he was stirred, got up to go, and put his glittering arms and armor on, and yielded to his heart and saved his people, rescuing the Aetolians from ruin.

Then Agamemnon, lord of men, replied, 120 “Sir, I have sometimes told you to reproach him. He often slacks off and refuses work, although he is not hesitant or stupid. He waits for me to take initiative. But this time, he was up before I was.

When two men walk together, one may see the way to profit from a situation before the other does. One man alone may think of something, but his mind moves slower. His powers of invention are too thin.”

As when the herdsman is away, a lion leaps to attack a flock of sheep or goats, and pounces on them with intent to kill, 610 so Diomedes, son of Tydeus, slaughtered the Thracians and killed twelve of them.

Athena stood by him and told him this, “Think of your journey home now, Diomedes, 510 640 back to the hollow ships. You must be careful in case you have to run away from someone. Another god might wake the Trojans up.”

were felled by Agamemnon, the son of Atreus. Now many horses rattled between the channels of the fighting. Their sturdy necks pulled empty chariots. 160 They missed their drivers, who lay on the earth, more dearly loved by vultures than their wives.

Swift-footed Iris stood near him and said, 200 “Great Hector, son of Priam, you are equal to Zeus in counsel. Zeus has sent me here to tell you this. As long as you can see that Agamemnon, shepherd of the people, runs riot at the front and slaughters men, 270 hold back from battle. Tell the other troops to grapple with the enemy in combat. But when he jumps into his chariot, struck by a spear or wounded by an arrow, then you will gain from Zeus the strength to kill until you reach the Greek ships set with benches, at sunset, when the holy darkness comes.”

But when the wound dried up, after the blood stopped flowing, Agamemnon, the son of Atreus, was pierced by pain. 350 As when a piercing, cruel arrow strikes a woman in the agony of labor, 270 shot by the goddesses of labor pangs, the Eileithuias, who are Hera’s daughters, in charge of cruel birth-pangs—even so sharp pains pierced Agamemnon.

He killed these leaders, then attacked their troops, the multitude—as when the west wind, Zephyr, assaults and pummels with a hurricane the white clouds gathered by the south wind, Notus— the billowing waves are swollen to great height, foam spatters in the air above the sea, tossed up by the chaotic blast of air— so fast the people died at Hector’s hands.

as when two boars, with confident, proud hearts, attack a pack of hunting hounds—just so, they swiveled and attacked and slaughtered Trojans.

Patriotism is the one true bird. Why are you scared of war and violence? Even if all the rest of us are killed beside the Greek ships, there is still no danger that you will die—because you have no courage, and no capacity to stand and fight! But if you flinch from battle, or advise 300 anyone else to turn back from the fighting, 250 I shall immediately hurl my spear and slaughter you.”

‘Our rulers, 390 the men who hold great sway in Lycian lands, are not dishonorable. They eat fat sheep 320 and drink good vintage wine as sweet as honey, but they are also brave and strong. They fight among the Lycian fighters at the front.’

But in fact, a million ways to die stand all around us. No mortal can escape or flee from death. So let us go. Perhaps we shall succeed, and win a triumph from another’s death, or somebody may triumph over us.”

More hands make labor light.”

Good people fix mistakes.