The Iliad of Homer

The Iliad of Homer (1873), by Homer

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Title: The Iliad of Homer (1873)
Author: Homer
Translator: Theodore Alois Buckley
Release Date: August 23, 2007 [EBook #22382]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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[Illustration: Homer by Hinchliff]
THE ILIAD OF HOMER,
Literally Translated, WITH EXPLANATORY NOTES.
BY
THEODORE ALOIS BUCKLEY, B.A. OF CHRIST CHURCH.
LONDON: BELL AND DALDY, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN. 1873.
LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.

PREFACE.
The present translation of the Iliad will, it is hoped, be found to convey, more accurately than any which has preceded it, the words and thoughts of the original. It is based upon a careful examination of whatever has been contributed by scholars of every age towards the elucidation of the text, including the ancient scholiasts and lexicographers, the exegetical labours of Barnes and Clarke, and the elaborate criticisms of Heyne, Wolf, and their successors.
The necessary brevity of the notes has prevented the full discussion of many passages where there is great room for difference of opinion, and hence several interpretations are adopted without question, which, had the editor's object been to write a critical commentary, would have undergone a more lengthened examination. The same reason has compelled him, in many instances, to substitute references for extracts, indicating rather than quoting those storehouses of information, from whose abundant contents he would gladly have drawn more copious supplies. Among the numerous works to which he has had recourse, the following deserve particular mention-Alberti's invaluable edition of Hesychius, the Commentary of Eustathius, and Buttmann's Lexilogus.
In the succeeding volume, the Odyssey, Hymns, and minor poems will be produced in a similar manner.
THEODORE ALOIS BUCKLEY, Ch. Ch., Oxford.

THE ILIAD OF HOMER.

BOOK THE FIRST.
ARGUMENT.
Apollo, enraged at the insult offered to his priest, Chryses, sends a pestilence upon the Greeks. A council is called, and Agamemnon, being compelled to restore the daughter of Chryses, whom he had taken from him, in revenge deprives Achilles of Hippodameia. Achilles resigns her, but refuses to aid the Greeks in battle, and at his request, his mother, Thetis, petitions Jove to honour her offended son at the expense of the Greeks. Jupiter, despite the opposition of Juno, grants her request.
Sing, O goddess, the destructive wrath of Achilles, son of Peleus, which brought countless woes upon the Greeks,[1] and hurled many valiant souls of heroes down to Hades, and made themselves[2] a prey to dogs and to all birds [but the will of Jove was being accomplished], from the time when Atrides, king of men, and noble Achilles, first contending, were disunited.
[Footnote 1: Although, as Ernesti observes, the verb [Greek: proiapsen] does not necessarily contain the idea of a premature death, yet the ancient interpreters are almost unanimous in understanding it so. Thus Eustathius, p. 13, ed. Bas.: [Greek: meta blaz��s eis Aio��n pro to deontos epemphen, ?s t��s prothese?s] (i.e. pro) [Greek: kairikon ti d��lous��s, �� apl?s epemphen, ?s pleonazous��s t��s prothese?s.] Hesych. t. ii. p. 1029, s. n.: [Greek: proiapsen--d��loi de dia t��s lezeos t��n met' odun��s aut?n apoleian]. Cf. Virg. ?n. xii. 952: "Vitaque cum gemitu fugit indignata sub umbras," where Servius well observes, "quia discedebat a juvene: nam volunt philosophi, invitam animam discedere a corpore, cum quo adhuc habitare legibus natur? poterat." I have, however, followed Ernesti, with the later commentators.]
[Footnote 2: I.e. their bodies. Cf. ?. i. 44, vi. 362, where there is a similar sense of the pronoun.]
Which, then, of the gods, engaged these two in strife, so that they should fight?[3] The son of Latona and Jove; for he, enraged with the king, stirred up an evil pestilence through the army [and the people kept perishing][4]; because the son of Atreus had dishonoured the priest Chryses: for he came to the swift ships of the Greeks to ransom his daughter, and bringing invaluable ransoms, having in his hands the fillets of far-darting Apollo on his golden sceptre. And he supplicated all the Greeks, but chiefly the two sons of Atreus, the leaders of the people:
"Ye sons of Atreus, and ye other well-greaved Greeks, to you indeed may the gods, possessing the heavenly dwellings, grant to destroy the city of Priam, and to return home safely: but for me, liberate my beloved daughter, and accept the ransoms, reverencing the son of Jove, far-darting Apollo."
[Footnote 3: Rut see Anthon.]
[Footnote 4: Observe the full force of the imperfect tense.]
Upon this, all the other Greeks shouted assent, that