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The Iliad

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Год написания книги
2019
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“Ye sons of Mars, partake your leader’s care,

Heroes of Greece, and brothers of the war!

Of partial Jove with justice I complain,

And heavenly oracles believed in vain

A safe return was promised to our toils,

Renown’d, triumphant, and enrich’d with spoils.

Now shameful flight alone can save the host,

Our blood, our treasure, and our glory lost.

So Jove decrees, resistless lord of all!

At whose command whole empires rise or fall:

He shakes the feeble props of human trust,

And towns and armies humbles to the dust

What shame to Greece a fruitful war to wage,

Oh, lasting shame in every future age!

Once great in arms, the common scorn we grow,

Repulsed and baffled by a feeble foe.

So small their number, that if wars were ceased,

And Greece triumphant held a general feast,

All rank’d by tens, whole decades when they dine

Must want a Trojan slave to pour the wine.

But other forces have our hopes o’erthrown,

And Troy prevails by armies not her own.

Now nine long years of mighty Jove are run,

Since first the labours of this war begun:

Our cordage torn, decay’d our vessels lie,

And scarce insure the wretched power to fly.

Haste, then, for ever leave the Trojan wall!

Our weeping wives, our tender children call:

Love, duty, safety, summon us away,

’Tis nature’s voice, and nature we obey,

Our shatter’d barks may yet transport us o’er,

Safe and inglorious, to our native shore.

Fly, Grecians, fly, your sails and oars employ,

And dream no more of heaven-defended Troy.”

His deep design unknown, the hosts approve

Atrides’ speech. The mighty numbers move.

So roll the billows to the Icarian shore,

From east and south when winds begin to roar,

Burst their dark mansions in the clouds, and sweep

The whitening surface of the ruffled deep.

And as on corn when western gusts descend,

Before the blast the lofty harvests bend:

Thus o’er the field the moving host appears,

With nodding plumes and groves of waving spears.

The gathering murmur spreads, their trampling feet

Beat the loose sands, and thicken to the fleet;

With long-resounding cries they urge the train

To fit the ships, and launch into the main.

They toil, they sweat, thick clouds of dust arise,

The doubling clamours echo to the skies.
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