The Iliad: Book 4

Now aloft by the side of Zeus the gods sat in council,
conferring across Olympus' golden floor as noble Hebe
poured them rounds of nectar.

So now we plan how the war will all work out:
do we rouse the pain and grisly fighting once again
or hand down pacts of peace between both armies?

Only if you could breach
their gates and their long walls and devour Priam
and Priam's sons and the Trojan armies raw—
then you just might cure your rage at last.

One would glance at a comrade, groaning, “What next—
battle again, more pain and grisly fighting?
Or pacts between both armies? Peace from Zeus,
the great steward on high who rules our mortal wars?"

Just let him see Menelaus, Atreus' fighting son
brought down by your shaft and hoisted onto his pyre,
mourned with grief and tears!

Then and there he unstrapped his polished bow,
the horn of a wild goat he'd shot in the chest
one day as the springy ibex clambered down a cliff.

Superb equipment—bending it back hard
the archer strung his bow...
propping an end against the ground as cohorts
braced their shields in a tight wedge to hide him,
fearing bands of Argives might just leap to their feet
before he could hit Menelaus, Atreus' fighting son.

She reared before you, skewed the tearing shaft,
flicking it off your skin as quick as a mother
flicks a fly from her baby sleeping softly.

And veteran Menelaus cringed himself but saw
the lashing-cords and barbs outside the gash
and his courage flooded back inside his chest.

Let Agamemnon wreak his anger so on all his foes!

When he saw the wound
where the tearing arrow hit, he sucked out the blood
and deftly applied the healing salves that Chiron,
friend of Asclepius, gave his father long ago.

When he saw the wound
where the tearing arrow hit, he sucked out the blood
and deftly applied the healing salves that Chiron,
friend of Asclepius, gave his father long ago.

And all the while they worked over Menelaus
whose cry could marshal armies, on the Trojans came,
columns armed for assault, and again the Argives
donned their gear and roused their lust for war.

You Argives—
glorious braggarts! Disgraces—have you no shame?

Standing there dazed, your fighting spirit dead—
what are you waiting for? You want these Trojans
to pin you against your high stems beached in the surf?
To see if Zeus will stretch his hands above your heads
and save your craven lives?

Elated and making way
through crowds of troops he found the two called Ajax,
Great and Little, both captains armed for attack
with a cloud of infantry forming up behind them.

Chiefs of the Argives armed in bronze,
no orders for you—it's wrong to incite you two,
you lead your men to war in so much force.

Let no man,
so sure of his horsemanship and soldier's prowess,
dare to fight it out alone with the Trojans,
exposed in front of his lines.

And Nestor the seasoned charioteer replied,
"True, Atrides, if only I were the man I was,
years ago, when I cut down rugged Ereuthalion…
but the gods won't give us all their gifts at once...."

Just you watch,
if you'll take the time and care to taste some action,
watch Telemachus' loving father lock and fight
with enemy champions, stallion-breaking Trojans.
You and your bluster—you are talking nonsense!

And he came on Tydeus' son, impetuous Diomedes
standing by in his bolted car behind his team
with Sthenelus flanked beside him, Capaneus' son.

Taunting so,
and steadfast Diomedes offered no reply…
overawed by the king's majestic scorn.

We are the ones who stormed the seven gates of Thebes,
heading a weaker force and facing stronger walls
but obeying the gods' signs and backed by Zeus.
Our fathers? Fools. Their own bravado killed them.

But resolute Diomedes gave him a dark glance:
"Sit down, my friend, be quiet. Listen to me.
I don't blame Agamemnon, our commander in chief,
for goading his combat-ready Argives into battle...."

But resolute Diomedes gave him a dark glance:
"Sit down, my friend, be quiet. Listen to me.
I don't blame Agamemnon, our commander in chief,
for goading his combat-ready Argives into battle...."

But not the Trojans, no…
like flocks of sheep in a wealthy rancher's steadings,
thousands crowding to have their white milk drained,
bleating nonstop when they hear their crying lambs—
so the shouts rose up from the long Trojan lines
and not one cry, no common voice to bind them
all together, their tongues mixed and clashed,
their men hailed from so many far-flung countries.

Wildly as two winter torrents raging down from the mountains,
swirling into a valley, hurl their great waters together,
flash floods from the wellsprings plunging down in a gorge
and miles away in the hills a shepherd hears the thunder—
so from the grinding armies broke the cries and crash of war.

And Telamonian Ajax struck Anthemion's son,
the hardy stripling Simoisius, still unwed...

Antiphus hurled at him—
the son of Priam wearing a gleaming breastplate
let fly through the lines but his sharp spear missed
and he hit Leucus instead, Odysseus' loyal comrade,
gouging his groin as the man hauled off a corpse—
it dropped from his hands and Leucus sprawled across it.

Look, there were Pirous' cohorts bunched in a ring,
Thracians, topknots waving, clutching their long pikes
and rugged, strong and proud as the Trojan Thoas was,
they shoved him back—he gave ground, staggering, reeling.