1
"There the children of black Night have their house,
Sleep and Death, awesome gods. Never does Helios
Glowing in his rays look upon these two
When he ascends the sky or from the sky descends.
One roams the earth and the wide back of the sea,
A quiet spirit, and is gentle to humans;
The other's heart is iron, unfeeling bronze,
And when he catches a man, he holds on to him.
He is hateful even to the immortal gods."
2
I wish
I had nothing to do with this generation,
Wish I had died before or had been born after,
Because this is the Iron Age.
3
"Still missing was a creature finer than these,
With a greater mind, one who could rule the rest:
Man was born, whether fashioned from immortal seed
By the Master Artisan who made this better world,
Or whether Earth, newly parted from Aether above
And still bearing some seeds of her cousin Sky,
was mixed with rainwater by Titan Prometheus
And molded into the image of the omipotent gods."
4
“And though fire fights water, moist vapor is fecund,
And this discordant concord is pregnant with life.
So when Mother Earth’s diluvian mud
Again grew warm under the rays of the sun,
She brought forth innumerable species, restoring some
Of the ancient forms, and creating some new and strange.”
5
"Instead, everyone would think he's found out at last
what he had always wanted: to come together and melt
together with the one he loves, so that one person
emerged form two. Why should this be so? It's because,
as I said, we used to be complete wholes in our original nature,
and now "Love" is the name for our pursuit for wholeness,
for our desire to be complete"
6
"This Ortilochus was the father of Diocles,
Who had twin sons, Certhon and Ortilochus,
Highly trained warriors. They had just reached
Manhood when they went with the Argives
On the black ships to Ilion, famed for its horses,
To win recompense for the sons of Atreus,
But death enfolded them both on that land."
7
"And Pontos, the Sea, begot his eldest, Nereus,
True and no liar. And they call him Old Man,
Because he is unerring and mild, remembers,
What is right, and his mind is gentle and just"
8
"And now you're threatening to take away the prize
That I seated for and the Greeks gave me.
I never get a prize equal to yours when the army
Captures one of the Trojan strongholds.
No, I do all of the dirty work with my own hands,
And when the battle's over and we divide the loot
You get the lions share and I go back to the ships
With some pitiful little thing, so worn out from fighting
I don't have the strength left even to complain.
Well, I'm going back to Phthia now. Far better
To head home with my curved ships the stay here,
Unhonored myself and piling up a fortune for you."
9
The warlord Agamemnon responded:
"Go ahead and desert, if that's what you want!
I'm not going to beg you to stay. There are plenty of others
Who will honor me, not least of all Zeus the Counselor.
To me, you're the most hateful king under heaven,
A born troublemaker. You actually like fighting and war.
If you're all that strong, it's just a gift from some god.
So why don't you go home with your ships and lord it over
Your precious Myrmidons. I couldn't care less about you
Or your famous temper. But I'll tell you this:
Since Phoebus Apollo is taking away my Chryseis,
Whom I'm sending back aboard ship with my friends,
I'm coming to your hut and taking Briseis,
Your own beautiful prize, so that you will see just how much
Stronger I am than you, and the next person will wince
At the thought of opposing me as an equal."
10
"I won't have you with me for long , my child,
If you say such things, Hector's death means yours."
11
And that is why the tribes of men on earth
Burn white bones to the immortals upon smoking altars.
12
"Friends!- and I mean everyone from heroes to camp followers-
no one ever said men are equal in war.
There is work for us all. You know it yourselves.
I dont want a single man to return the ships
now that you have heard the rallying cry.
Kepp the pressure on. Olympian Zeus may still grant
us to drive the enemy back to the city."
13
"From her is the race of women,
the deadly race and tribe of women,
a great infestation among mortal men,
at home with wealth but not with poverty."
14
"Those that Homer, Hesiod, and the other poets tell us,
for surely they composed false stories,
told them to people and are still telling them."
15
"And, so the loft sky would not be safer than earth,
They say the Giants went after the kingdom of heaven,
Piling up mountains all the way to the stars
16
"And Achilles, strong, swift, and godlike:
'You will have your armistice.'
and he clasped the old man's wrist so he would not be afraid"
17
“Listen to me, children, and we might yet get even
With your criminal father for what he has done to us.
After all, he started this whole ugly business.”
18
"Either I'm mistaken or- since oracles
are holy and never counsel evil-
Our great mother is Earth,
and stones in her soil
Are the bones we are told to throw behind our backs."
19
"You're asleep and have forgotten me, Achilles.
You never neglected me when I was alive,
But now, when I am dead!
Bury me quickly so I may pass through Hades' gates.
The spirits keep me at a distance,
the phantoms of men outworn,
and will not yet allow me to join them beyond the River.
I wander aimlessly through Hades' wide-doored house
20
"Hail, I bid thee, O Patroclus, even in the house of Hades,
for now am I bringing all to pass,
which afore-time I promised thee.
Twelve valiant sons of the great-souled Trojans,
lo all these together with thee the flame devoureth;
but Hector, son of Priam,
will I nowise give to the fire to feed upon, but to dogs.”.
21
"Come here, dear child, sit next to me
So you can see your former husband
And dear kinsmen. You are not to blame
For this war with the Greeks. The gods are."