The Iliad of Homer | Page 8

conducting the virgin daughter of Bris?is, whom the sons of the Greeks gave to me. But do thou, if thou art able, aid thy son. Going to Olympus, supplicate Jove, if ever thou didst delight the heart of Jove as to anything, by word or deed; for I frequently heard thee boasting in the palaces of my sire, when thou saidest that thou alone, amongst the immortals, didst avert unworthy destruction from the cloud-collecting son of Saturn, when the other Olympian inhabitants, Juno, and Neptune, and Pallas Minerva, wished to bind him. But thou, O goddess, having approached, freed him from his chains, having quickly summoned to lofty Olympus, the hundred-handed, whom the gods call Briareus, and all men ?geon, because he was superior to his father in strength,[47] who then sat by the son of Saturn, exulting in renown. Him then the blessed gods dreaded, nor did they bind [Jove]. Of these things now reminding him, sit beside him, and embrace his knees, if in anywise he may consent to aid the Trojans, and hem in[48] at their ships, and along the sea, the Greeks [while they get] slaughtered, that all may enjoy their king, and that the son of Atreus, wide-ruling Agamemnon, may know his baleful folly,[49] when he in no wise honoured the bravest of the Greeks."
[Footnote 46: Thebe was situated on the border of Mysia, on the mountain Placus, in the district afterwards called Adramyttium. The inhabitants were Cilicians.--See Heyne, and De Pinedo on Steph. Byz. s.v. p. 307, n. 58.]
[Footnote 47: There is some doubt whether Homer considered Briareus as the son of Neptune or of Uranus and Terra.--See Arnold. The fable is ridiculed by Minucius Felix, �� 22.]
[Footnote 48: See Buttm. Lexil. pp. 257, 261, Fishlake's translation.]
[Footnote 49: The idea of infatuation is not, however, necessarily implied in [Greek: at��]. See Buttm. Lex. p. 5, sq.]
But him Thetis then answered, shedding down a tear: "Alas! my son, wherefore have I reared thee, having brought thee forth in an evil hour. Would that thou wert seated at the ships tearless and uninjured; for thy destined life is but for a very short period, nor very long; but now art thou both swift-fated and wretched above all mortals: therefore have I brought thee forth in my palace under an evil fate. However, to tell thy words to thunder-delighting Jove, I myself will go to snow-clad Olympus, if by chance he will be persuaded. But do thou, now sitting at the swift ships, wage resentment against the Greeks, and totally abstain from war. For yesterday Jove went to Oceanus,[50] to the blameless ?thiopians, to a banquet, and with him went all the gods. But on the twelfth day he will return to Olympus; and then will I go to the brazen-floored palace of Jove, and suppliantly embrace his knees, and I think that he will be persuaded."
[Footnote 50: According to Homer, the earth is a circular plane, and Oceanus is an immense stream encircling it, from which the different rivers run inward.]
Thus having said, she departed, and left him there wrathful in his soul for his well-girded maid, whom they had taken from him against his will. But Ulysses, meantime, came to Chrysa, bringing the sacred hecatomb. But they, when they had entered the deep haven, first furled their sails, and stowed them in the sable bark; they next brought the mast to its receptacle, lowering it quickly by its stays, and they rowed the vessel forwards with oars into its moorage; they heaved out the sleepers, and tied the hawsers. They themselves then went forth on the breakers of the sea, and disembarked the hecatomb to far-darting Apollo, and then they made the daughter of Chryses descend from the sea-traversing bark. Then wise Ulysses, leading her to the altar, placed her in the hands of her dear father, and addressed him:
"O Chryses, Agamemnon, king of men, sent me forth to conduct to thee thy daughter, and to sacrifice a sacred hecatomb to Phoebus for the Greeks, that we may appease the king, who now has sent evils fraught with groanings upon the Argives."
Thus having spoken, he placed her in his hands; but he rejoicing received his beloved daughter. Then they immediately placed in order the splendid hecatomb for the god around the well-built altar. After that they washed their hands, and held up the pounded barley.[51] But for them, Chryses, uplifting his hands, prayed with loud voice:
[Footnote 51: "Salted barley meal,"--Anthon; "whole barley,"--Voss; but Buttmann, Lexil. p. 454, in a highly amusing note, observes, "no supposition of a regular and constant distinction between the Greeks and Romans, the one using barley whole and the other coarsely ground, possible as the thing may be in itself, is to be entertained without the express testimony of the ancients."]
"Hear