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Library / Literature & Fiction

The Iliad

by Homer

Pages
about 572
Category
Literature & Fiction
Language
English
Reading time
10 h at 250 wpm
Start readingThe whole book, as cards or one word at a time. 5.8 h at 450 wpm in Read mode.

From the opening

In the present Edition the translation has been carefully revised throughout, and numerous minor corrections have been made. The Notes at the end of the volume have been, with a few exceptions, omitted; one of the Translators hopes to publish very shortly a Companion to the Iliad for English readers, which will deal fully with most of the points therein referred to.

The use of square brackets has in this edition been restricted to passages where there is external evidence, such as absence from the best MSS., for believing in interpolation. One or two departures from this rule are noticed in footnotes.

The sacred soil of Ilios is rent With shaft and pit; foiled waters wander slow Through plains where Simois and Scamander went To war with gods and heroes long ago. Not yet to dark Cassandra lying low In rich Mycenae do the Fates relent; The bones of Agamemnon are a show, And ruined is his royal monument. The dust and awful treasures of the dead Hath learning scattered wide; but vainly thee, Homer, she meteth with her Lesbian lead, And strives to rend thy songs, too blind is she To know the crown on thine immortal head Of indivisible supremacy.

Athwart the sunrise of our western day The form of great Achilles, high and clear, Stands forth in arms, wielding the Pelian spear. The sanguine tides of that immortal fray, Swept on by gods, around him surge and sway, Wherethrough the helms of many a warrior peer, Strong men and swift, their tossing plumes uprear. But stronger, swifter, goodlier he than they, More awful, more divine. Yet mark anigh; Some fiery pang hath rent his soul within, Some hovering shade his brows encompasseth. What gifts hath Fate for all his chivalry? Even such as hearts heroic oftenest win; Honour, a friend, anguish, untimely death.

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