The Iliad

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Гомер

Жанр

Классическая проза

Год написания книги

2019

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The shaft infix’d, and saw the gushing tide:

Nor less the Spartan fear’d, before he found

The shining barb appear above the wound,

Then, with a sigh, that heaved his manly breast,

The royal brother thus his grief express’d,

And grasp’d his hand; while all the Greeks around

With answering sighs return’d the plaintive sound.

“Oh, dear as life! did I for this agree

The solemn truce, a fatal truce to thee!

Wert thou exposed to all the hostile train,

To fight for Greece, and conquer, to be slain!

The race of Trojans in thy ruin join,

And faith is scorn’d by all the perjured line.

Not thus our vows, confirm’d with wine and gore,

Those hands we plighted, and those oaths we swore,

Shall all be vain: when Heaven’s revenge is slow,

Jove but prepares to strike the fiercer blow.

The day shall come, that great avenging day,

When Troy’s proud glories in the dust shall lay,

When Priam’s powers and Priam’s self shall fall,

And one prodigious ruin swallow all.

I see the god, already, from the pole

Bare his red arm, and bid the thunder roll;

I see the Eternal all his fury shed,

And shake his aegis o’er their guilty head.

Such mighty woes on perjured princes wait;

But thou, alas! deserv’st a happier fate.

Still must I mourn the period of thy days,

And only mourn, without my share of praise?

Deprived of thee, the heartless Greeks no more

Shall dream of conquests on the hostile shore;

Troy seized of Helen, and our glory lost,

Thy bones shall moulder on a foreign coast;

While some proud Trojan thus insulting cries,

(And spurns the dust where Menelaus lies,)

‘Such are the trophies Greece from Ilion brings,

And such the conquest of her king of kings!

Lo his proud vessels scatter’d o’er the main,

And unrevenged, his mighty brother slain.’

Oh! ere that dire disgrace shall blast my fame,

O’erwhelm me, earth! and hide a monarch’s shame.”

He said: a leader’s and a brother’s fears

Possess his soul, which thus the Spartan cheers:

“Let not thy words the warmth of Greece abate;

The feeble dart is guiltless of my fate:

Stiff with the rich embroider’d work around,

My varied belt repell’d the flying wound.”

To whom the king: “My brother and my friend,

Thus, always thus, may Heaven thy life defend!

Now seek some skilful hand, whose powerful art