Achilles (Mythological character); Epic poetry, Greek -- Translations into English; Trojan War
Then Thetis weeping made answer to him: “Ah me, my child, why reared I
thee, cursed in my motherhood? Would thou hadst been left tearless and
griefless amid the ships, seeing thy lot is very brief and endureth no
long while; but now art thou made short-lived alike and lamentable
beyond all men; in an evil hour I bare thee in our halls. But I will go
myself to snow-clad Olympus to tell this thy saying to Zeus, whose joy
is in the thunder*, if perchance he may hearken to me. But tarry thou
now amid thy fleet-faring ships, and continue wroth with the Achaians,
and refrain utterly from battle: for Zeus went yesterday to Okeanos,
unto the noble Ethiopians for a feast, and all the gods followed with
him; but on the twelfth day will he return to Olympus, and then will I
fare to Zeus’ palace of the bronze threshold, and will kneel to him and
think to win him.”
* perhaps rather, “hurler of the thunderbolt.”
So saying she went her way and left him there, vexed in spirit for the
fair-girdled woman’s sake, whom they had taken perforce despite his
will: and meanwhile Odysseus came to Chryse with the holy hecatomb.
When they were now entered within the deep haven, they furled their
sails and laid them in the black ship, and lowered the mast by the
forestays and brought it to the crutch with speed, and rowed her with
oars to the anchorage. Then they cast out the mooring stones and made
fast the hawsers, and so themselves went forth on to the sea-beach, and
forth they brought the hecatomb for the Far-darter Apollo, and forth
came Chryseis withal from the seafaring ship. Then Odysseus of many
counsels brought her to the altar and gave her into her father’s arms,
and spake unto him: “Chryses, Agamemnon king of men sent me hither to
bring thee thy daughter, and to offer to Phoebus a holy hecatomb on the
Danaans’ behalf, wherewith to propitiate the king that hath now brought
sorrow and lamentation on the Argives.”
So saying he gave her to his arms, and he gladly took his dear child;
and anon they set in order for the god the holy hecatomb about his
well-builded altar; next washed they their hands and took up the barley
meal. Then Chryses lifted up his hands and prayed aloud for them:
“Hearken to me, god of the silver bow that standest over Chryse and
holy Killa, and rulest Tenedos with might; even as erst thou heardest
my prayer, and didst me honour, and mightily afflictest the people of
the Achaians, even so now fulfil me this my desire: remove thou from
the Danaans forthwith the loathly pestilence.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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