by Homer
And lie entranced. Round about the people broke the air
In lamentations; and all day had stayed the people there,
If Priam had not cried: " Give way, give me but leave to bear
The body home, and mourn your fills." Then cleft the press, and gave
Way to the chariot. To the court herald Idseus drave,
Where on a rich bed they bestowed the honoured person, round
Girt it with singers that the woe with skilful voices crowned.
A woeful elegy they sung, wept singing, and the dames
Sighed as they sung. Andromache the downright prose exclaims
Began to all; she on the neck of slaughtered Hector fell,
And cried out: " O my husband, thou in youth bad'st youth farewell,
Left'st me a widow, thy sole son an infant; ourselves cursed
In our birth made him right our child, for all my care that nursed
His infancy will never give life to his youth ere that
Troy from her top will be destroyed; thou guardian of our state,
Though even of all her strength the strength, thou, that in care wert past
Her careful mothers of their babes, being gone, how can she last?
Soon will the swoln fleet fill her womb with all their servitude,
Myself with them, and thou with me, dear son, in labours rude
Shalt be employed, sternly surveyed by cruel conquerors;
Or, rage not suffering life so long, some one, whose hate abhors
Thy presence (putting him in mind of his sire slain by thine,
His brother, son, or friend) shall work thy ruin before mine,
Tossed from some tow'r, for many Greeks have ate earth from the hand
Of thy strong father, in sad fight his spirit was too much manned,
And therefore mourn his people; we, thy parents, my dear lord,
For that thou mak'st endure a woe, black, and to be abhorred.
Of all yet thou hast left me worst, not dying in thy bed,
And reaching me" thy last-raised hand, in nothing counselled,
Nothing commanded by that pow'r thou hadst of me to do
Some deed for thy sake. O for these never will end my woe,
Never my tears cease." Thus wept she, and all the ladies closed
Her passion with a general shriek. Then Hecuba disposed
Her thoughts in like words : " O my son, of all mine much most dear,
Dear while thou liv'st too even to gods, and after death they were
Careful to save thee. Being best, thou most wert envied;
My other sons Achilles sold; but thee he left not dead.
Imber and Samos, the false ports of Lemnos entertained
Their persons; thine, no port but death. Nor there in rest remained
Thy violated corse, the tomb of his great friend was sphered
With thy dragged person; yet from death he was not therefore reared.
But, all his rage used, so the gods have tendered thy dead state,
Thou liest as living, sweet and fresh, as he that felt the fate
Of Phcebus' holy shafts." These words the queen used for her moan,
And, next her, Helen held that state of speech and passion :
“O Hector, all my brothers more were not so loved of me
As thy most virtues. Not my lord I held so dear, as thee,
That brought me hither; before which I would I had been brought
To ruin, for what breeds that wish, which is the mischief wrought
By my access, yet never found one harsh taunt, one word's ill,
From thy sweet carriage. Twenty years do now their circles fill
Since my arrival; all which time thou didst not only bear
Thyself without check, but all else, that my lord's brothers were,
Their sisters' lords, sisters themselves, the queen my mother-in-law,
(The king being never but most mild) when thy man's spirit saw
Sour and reproachful, it would still reprove their bitterness
With sweet words, and thy gentle soul. And therefore thy decease
I truly mourn for, and myself curse as the wretched cause,
All broad Troy yielding me not one that any human laws
Of pity or forgiveness moved t' entreat me humanly,
But only thee, all else abhorred me for my destiny."
These words made even the commons mourn, to whom the king said : " Friends,
Now fetch wood for our funeral fire, nor fear the foe intends
Ambush, or any violence; Achilles gave his word,
At my dismission, that twelve days he would keep sheathed his sword,
And all men's else." Thus oxen, mules, in chariots-straight they put,
Went forth, and an unmeasured pile of sylvan matter cut,
Nine days employed in carriage, but when the tenth morn shined
On wretched mortals, then they brought the fit-to-be divined
Forth to be burned. Troy swum in tears. Upon the pile's most height
They laid the person, and guve fire. All day it burned, all night.
But when th' eleventh mora let on earth her rosy fingers shine,
The people fioclced about the pile, and first with blackish wine
Quenched all the flames. His brothers then, and friends, the snowy bones
Gathered into an urn of gold, still pouring on their moans.
Then wrapt they in soft purple veils the rich urn, digged a pit,
Graved it, rammed up the wave with stones, and quickly built to it
A sepulchre. But, while that; work and all the funeral rites
Were in performance, guards were held at all parts, days and nights,
For fear of false surprise before they had imposed the crown
To these solemnities. The tomb advanced once, all the town
In Jove-nursed Priam's Court partook a passing sumptuous feast.
And so horse-taming Hector's rites gave up his soul to rest.
THE ILIAD – Pope’s Translation
Alexander Pope’s 1715 translation of The Iliad was composed in heroic couplets, and, like Chapman’s, it is considered to be a major poetic work.
Alexander Pope
POPE’S ILIAD
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
POPE'S PREFACE TO THE ILIAD OF HOMER
BOOK I.
BOOK II.
BOOK III.
BOOK IV.
BOOK V.
BOOK VI.
BOOK VII.
BOOK VIII.
BOOK IX.
BOOK X.
BOOK XI.
BOOK XII.
BOOK XIII.
BOOK XIV.
BOOK XV.
BOOK XVI.
BOOK XVII.
BOOK XVIII.
BOOK XIX.
BOOK XX.
BOOK XXI.
BOOK XXII.
BOOK XXIII.
BOOK XXIV.
CONCLUDING NOTE.
INTRODUCTION
Scepticism is as much the result of knowledge, as knowledge is of scepticism. To be content with what we at present know, is, for the most part, to shut our ears against conviction; since, from the very gradual character of our education, we must continually forget, and emancipate ourselves from, knowledge previously acquired; we must set aside old notions and embrace fresh ones; and, as we learn, we must be daily unlearning something which it has cost us no small labour and anxiety to acquire.
And this difficulty attaches itself more closely to an age in which progress has gained a strong ascendency over prejudice, and in which persons and things are, day by day, finding their real level, in lieu of their conventional value. The same principles which have swept away traditional abuses, and which are making rapid havoc among the revenues of sinecurists, and stripping the thin, tawdry veil from attractive superstitions, are working as actively in literature as in society. The credulity of one writer, or the partia
lity of another, finds as powerful a touchstone and as wholesome a chastisement in the healthy scepticism of a temperate class of antagonists, as the dreams of conservatism, or the impostures of pluralist sinecures in the Church. History and tradition, whether of ancient or comparatively recent times, are subjected to very different handling from that which the indulgence or credulity of former ages could allow. Mere statements are jealously watched, and the motives of the writer form as important an ingredient in the analysis of his history, as the facts he records. Probability is a powerful and troublesome test; and it is by this troublesome standard that a large portion of historical evidence is sifted. Consistency is no less pertinacious and exacting in its demands. In brief, to write a history, we must know more than mere facts. Human nature, viewed under an induction of extended experience, is the best help to the criticism of human history. Historical characters can only be estimated by the standard which human experience, whether actual or traditionary, has furnished. To form correct views of individuals we must regard them as forming parts of a great whole — we must measure them by their relation to the mass of beings by whom they are surrounded, and, in contemplating the incidents in their lives or condition which tradition has handed down to us, we must rather consider the general bearing of the whole narrative, than the respective probability of its details.
It is unfortunate for us, that, of some of the greatest men, we know least, and talk most. Homer, Socrates, and Shakespere have, perhaps, contributed more to the intellectual enlightenment of mankind than any other three writers who could be named, and yet the history of all three has given rise to a boundless ocean of discussion, which has left us little save the option of choosing which theory or theories we will follow. The personality of Shakespere is, perhaps, the only thing in which critics will allow us to believe without controversy; but upon everything else, even down to the authorship of plays, there is more or less of doubt and uncertainty. Of Socrates we know as little as the contradictions of Plato and Xenophon will allow us to know. He was one of the dramatis personae in two dramas as unlike in principles as in style. He appears as the enunciator of opinions as different in their tone as those of the writers who have handed them down. When we have read Plato or Xenophon, we think we know something of Socrates; when we have fairly read and examined both, we feel convinced that we are something worse than ignorant.
It has been an easy, and a popular expedient, of late years, to deny the personal or real existence of men and things whose life and condition were too much for our belief. This system — which has often comforted the religious sceptic, and substituted the consolations of Strauss for those of the New Testament — has been of incalculable value to the historical theorists of the last and present centuries. To question the existence of Alexander the Great, would be a more excusable act, than to believe in that of Romulus. To deny a fact related in Herodotus, because it is inconsistent with a theory developed from an Assyrian inscription which no two scholars read in the same way, is more pardonable, than to believe in the good-natured old king whom the elegant pen of Florian has idealized — Numa Pompilius.
Scepticism has attained its culminating point with respect to Homer, and the state of our Homeric knowledge may be described as a free permission to believe any theory, provided we throw overboard all written tradition, concerning the author or authors of the Iliad and Odyssey. What few authorities exist on the subject, are summarily dismissed, although the arguments appear to run in a circle. "This cannot be true, because it is not true; and, that is not true, because it cannot be true." Such seems to be the style, in which testimony upon testimony, statement upon statement, is consigned to denial and oblivion.
It is, however, unfortunate that the professed biographies of Homer are partly forgeries, partly freaks of ingenuity and imagination, in which truth is the requisite most wanting. Before taking a brief review of the Homeric theory in its present conditions, some notice must be taken of the treatise on the Life of Homer which has been attributed to Herodotus.
According to this document, the city of Cumae in Æolia, was, at an early period, the seat of frequent immigrations from various parts of Greece. Among the immigrants was Menapolus, the son of Ithagenes. Although poor, he married, and the result of the union was a girl named Critheis. The girl was left an orphan at an early age, under the guardianship of Cleanax, of Argos. It is to the indiscretion of this maiden that we "are indebted for so much happiness." Homer was the first fruit of her juvenile frailty, and received the name of Melesigenes, from having been born near the river Meles, in Boeotia, whither Critheis had been transported in order to save her reputation.
"At this time," continues our narrative, "there lived at Smyrna a man named Phemius, a teacher of literature and music, who, not being married, engaged Critheis to manage his household, and spin the flax he received as the price of his scholastic labours. So satisfactory was her performance of this task, and so modest her conduct, that he made proposals of marriage, declaring himself, as a further inducement, willing to adopt her son, who, he asserted, would become a clever man, if he were carefully brought up."
They were married; careful cultivation ripened the talents which nature had bestowed, and Melesigenes soon surpassed his schoolfellows in every attainment, and, when older, rivalled his preceptor in wisdom. Phemius died, leaving him sole heir to his property, and his mother soon followed. Melesigenes carried on his adopted father's school with great success, exciting the admiration not only of the inhabitants of Smyrna, but also of the strangers whom the trade carried on there, especially in the exportation of corn, attracted to that city. Among these visitors, one Mentes, from Leucadia, the modern Santa Maura, who evinced a knowledge and intelligence rarely found in those times, persuaded Melesigenes to close his school, and accompany him on his travels. He promised not only to pay his expenses, but to furnish him with a further stipend, urging, that, "While he was yet young, it was fitting that he should see with his own eyes the countries and cities which might hereafter be the subjects of his discourses." Melesigenes consented, and set out with his patron, "examining all the curiosities of the countries they visited, and informing himself of everything by interrogating those whom he met." We may also suppose, that he wrote memoirs of all that he deemed worthy of preservation Having set sail from Tyrrhenia and Iberia, they reached Ithaca. Here Melesigenes, who had already suffered in his eyes, became much worse, and Mentes, who was about to leave for Leucadia, left him to the medical superintendence of a friend of his, named Mentor, the son of Alcinor. Under his hospitable and intelligent host, Melesigenes rapidly became acquainted with the legends respecting Ulysses, which afterwards formed the subject of the Odyssey. The inhabitants of Ithaca assert, that it was here that Melesigenes became blind, but the Colophomans make their city the seat of that misfortune. He then returned to Smyrna, where he applied himself to the study of poetry.
But poverty soon drove him to Cumae. Having passed over the Hermaean plain, he arrived at Neon Teichos, the New Wall, a colony of Cumae. Here his misfortunes and poetical talent gained him the friendship of one Tychias, an armourer. "And up to my time," continued the author, "the inhabitants showed the place where he used to sit when giving a recitation of his verses, and they greatly honoured the spot. Here also a poplar grew, which they said had sprung up ever since Melesigenes arrived".
But poverty still drove him on, and he went by way of Larissa, as being the most convenient road. Here, the Cumans say, he composed an epitaph on Gordius, king of Phrygia, which has however, and with greater probability, been attributed to Cleobulus of Lindus.
Arrived at Cumae, he frequented the converzationes of the old men, and delighted all by the charms of his poetry. Encouraged by this favourable reception, he declared that, if they would allow him a public maintenance, he would render their city most gloriously renowned. They avowed their willingness to support him in the measure he proposed, and procured him an audience in the council. Having made the speech, with the purport of whic
h our author has forgotten to acquaint us, he retired, and left them to debate respecting the answer to be given to his proposal.
The greater part of the assembly seemed favourable to the poet's demand, but one man observed that "if they were to feed Homers, they would be encumbered with a multitude of useless people." "From this circumstance," says the writer, "Melesigenes acquired the name of Homer, for the Cumans call blind men Homers." With a love of economy, which shows how similar the world has always been in its treatment of literary men, the pension was denied, and the poet vented his disappointment in a wish that Cumoea might never produce a poet capable of giving it renown and glory.
At Phocoea, Homer was destined to experience another literary distress. One Thestorides, who aimed at the reputation of poetical genius, kept Homer in his own house, and allowed him a pittance, on condition of the verses of the poet passing in his name. Having collected sufficient poetry to be profitable, Thestorides, like some would-be-literary publishers, neglected the man whose brains he had sucked, and left him. At his departure, Homer is said to have observed: "O Thestorides, of the many things hidden from the knowledge of man, nothing is more unintelligible than the human heart."
Homer continued his career of difficulty and distress, until some Chian merchants, struck by the similarity of the verses they heard him recite, acquainted him with the fact that Thestorides was pursuing a profitable livelihood by the recital of the very same poems. This at once determined him to set out for Chios. No vessel happened then to be setting sail thither, but he found one ready to Start for Erythrae, a town of Ionia, which faces that island, and he prevailed upon the seamen to allow him to accompany them. Having embarked, he invoked a favourable wind, and prayed that he might be able to expose the imposture of Thestorides, who, by his breach of hospitality, had drawn down the wrath of Jove the Hospitable.
At Erythrae, Homer fortunately met with a person who had known him in Phocoea, by whose assistance he at length, after some difficulty, reached the little hamlet of Pithys. Here he met with an adventure, which we will continue in the words of our author. "Having set out from Pithys, Homer went on, attracted by the cries of some goats that were pasturing. The dogs barked on his approach, and he cried out. Glaucus (for that was the name of the goat-herd) heard his voice, ran up quickly, called off his dogs, and drove them away from Homer. For or some time he stood wondering how a blind man should have reached such a place alone, and what could be his design in coming. He then went up to him, and inquired who he was, and how he had come to desolate places and untrodden spots, and of what he stood in need. Homer, by recounting to him the whole history of his misfortunes, moved him with compassion; and he took him, and led him to his cot, and having lit a fire, bade him sup.