two from homer

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Two from HomerAuthor(s): Edwin MorganSource: Arion, Vol. 7, No. 1 (Spring, 1968), pp. 102-109Published by: Trustees of Boston UniversityStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20163118 .

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TWO FROM HOMER

Translated by Edwin Morgan

njAD 14.1-108

Nestor put down his wine-cup, startled by the cries

that reached him from the battle. He turned to Machaon.

"We must think fast," he said, "we must know what this

means,

The shouting is growing louder down by the ships. But you stay here, you are wounded; the wine is bright, and Hecamede will be heating up a bath,

bending her fair head to wash off the clotted blood. I will go at once to some vantage point for news."

With these words, Nestor took up the gKttering shield of handsome bronze left there in the hut by his son

Thrasymedes the horseman, who had taken his. He seized a good bronze-pointed spear, and stepped

outside. At once he saw the shocking scene: the turbulence

of men in flight, and men in full pursuit; the Greeks with their rampart smashed, and the Trojans exulting. You have seen the huge sea moved darkly by a swell in silence, waiting to be buffeted by winds

but still uncertainly heaving forward and back, till one strong gust comes driving down from the

heavens? The old man's mind was working like that sea, thinking whether he should join the keen-horsed Greeks in the

fight or look for Agamemnon leader of them all.

Suddenly his thought cleared: it was Agamemnon he must go to. And all this time the armies fought interlocked in blood, and the bronze armor rang out

challenged by the double-pointed spear and the sword.

Soon Nestor met the princes, coming from their ships: Diomedes, Odysseus, Agamemnon; enemy blades had discovered their royal blood.



Edwin Morgan 103

Their ships had been drawn up first at the gray sea's

edge, far from the fighting and the inland boats in front

were fortified by a wall built along the sterns? for although the beach was broad it hadn't the space to accommodate a line of ships and men, so

vessels were drawn up in rows, and the whole shore there was black witii them, between the headlands of the bay. Here then came the leaders, leaning upon their spears, huddled together anxiously for sight or sound of the batt?e's progress; each breast hid a sad heart.

Sight of old Nestor hardly made these hearts less sad!

King Agamemnon came up, spoke mquiringly :

"Ah Nestor, pride of the Greeks, why have you come

here,

what has torn you away from bloodshed and tumult? Can you not see Hector accompHshing his boast? Remember how he told his troops he'd leave our ships only when they were a?? in flames and we were dead?

Then, then back to Troy! ?That's what the great Hector said!

That was his threat. And now his threat is in action.

God, but if those men of mine desert the ship-wall I'll think they hate me, for all their shining armor! Ill think Achilles' spite has captured the whole camp!"

And Nestor, horseman and hero, had this to say: "Things are as they must be, and we must suffer them; even Zeus with his thunderbolts must suffer them.

We thought the wall we built behind the ships would save

both ships and us : a sure bastion. Now it is breached, and the battle rages unrennttingly to swallow our warships, and the most difigent eyes are powerless now to trace in the swaying clash the front line of our dying hunted Greeks; the cries

mount to the clouds. We must think hard what means are left?

if any means are left. One thing we cannot do, and that is fight again; the wounded cannot fight."



104 TWO FROM HOMER

And King Agamemnon, master of men, answered:

"Nestor, if the enemy have already reached the first line of ships, and overrun that great wall and laughed at the ditch we dug so laboriously? a sure bastion, we thought, to save the ships and us?

if this is true, almighty Zeus has deteimined to shame and destroy the Greeks on these ahen plains.

Oh I knew this when he was all help and favor; I know it better when he sets our enemies in a heaven of joy, and binds us brooding here.

?Well then, tins is it: aH listen carefully now.

What we must do is pull down into the water

the ships that are nearest, and once they are afloat moor them in the salty roads, till blessed darkness and absence of Trojans?if they are absent!?make a lull for the safe launching of the other ships.

Who will blame us for flying from evil by night? Better to escape from this evil than be caught!"

But keen-witted Odysseus broke in sharply: "What language is that for the son of Atreus?

Defeatist! Keep these cold commands for tenth-rate

troops, but not for men like us who are bound under Zeus to wind our given cod of unloved war, wind it

through youth and age, to the last one of us that breathes! Are we just to forget about Troy, is that it?

Give up its broad streets, the dream we've suffered for? If these are your ideas, keep them to yourself.

Our troops don't want a speech it has shocked me to hear from the Hps of a king who controls vast armies, whose mind should work clearly, and whose words

should give hope. What you recommend is one great act of foHy. You ask us, with the fighting raging about us, to drag those ships with their oars to the sea's edge.

Do you think the Trojans will stand by? Victory is already in their grasp, but this would clinch it? clinch our annihilation. Men who are aware

of the boats moving seaward will scarcely keep eyes on the Trojans in front, and their swords will falter.



Edwin Morgan 105

A king will have decreed the ruin of his folk!" And Eng Agamemnon, master of men, repHed: "Odysseus, Odysseus, you lash my heart! If yours is the voice of the Greeks, let the boats stay.

Let no unwilling hands drag their timber to sea.

But who has a better pkn to ky before me? Veteran or the youngest, let him freely speak."

II

ILIAD 17.6*6-761

Both Menekus and bold Ajax saw it clear: the Trojans owed their new supremacy to Zeus.

Great Ajax, Telamon's son, began to exclaim:

"Aagh, it needs Httle eye or brain to be aware

that Father Zeus himself helps Troy. A Trojan casts his weapon, and whether he throws true or wide, Zeus

guides it to the target every time. But our spears? what makes them miss their prey, fall limply to the

ground? ?Well, with or without Zeus we have work on our hands. The body must be got to safety, and we want to reassure our friends back there that we're aHve; their hearts must sink as they peer in our direction,

imagining Hector's arm invincibly strong in dealing death and hunting us to our bkck ships.

Getting a message to Achilles, too, at once? can we? Have we a man? I'm sure he doesn't know the terrible truth, that the friend he loves Hes dead. But I can't even see anyone we can send? our men, our horses are

plunging shapes in a fog. O Father Zeus, breakup this darkness for your Greeks! Give us unclouded air that eyes can penetrate. If we must die, destroy us in the Hght of day."

He finished; he wept. And the father of the gods relented, quickfy thinning the darkness, rolling the fog away. The sun blazed out, and before them the whole field of battle unfolded. Ajax spoke



106 TWO FROM HOMER

to the good warrior-voiced king: "Menekus,

king under Zeus, see now if you can discover

Antilochus, great Nestor's son?if he's aHve, send him at once to tell keen-hearted Achilles his dearest friend Hes dead." Menekus nodded, and the good warrior-voiced king made to move off.

Yet, as the Hon pads at last from the farmyard tired of provoking watchdogs and unsleeping men

who want to keep their well-fed cattle from his jaws; ravenously, vainly trying to stampede them,

stopped in his bounding tracks by a thick hail of darts and blazing faggots fearlessly thrown; loping off, sullen, at the first Hght?that was how the king felt, the good warrior-voiced Menekus, leaving

Patroclus. As he lingered, reluctant to go, he imagined the hard-pressed Greeks in a panic letting the enemy take the body. This fear

made him exhort them vehemendy?Meriones and the Ajaxes in particular. He said: "Commanders and Greeks, let no one be unmindful of this generous soul, unlucky Patroclus. It was his gift, in life, to be unkind to none.

But now he goes with death and fate alone." With this,

The fair-haired Menekus left. He gazed all round as an eagle does?and isn't that the sharpest pair of eyes in the sky? High up it soars, and yet it sees the swift hare crouched in the brake, it swoops

down,

instantly clutches it, and kills it. Eagle-bright were your eyes, kingly Menekus, scanning round,

searching through the ranks of all your friends for a

glimpse of Nestor's son aHve. ?Soon he caught sight of liim, over on the left of the fighting putting heart into his men, urging them to advance. He called as he came up, fair-haired Menekus called out: "Noble Antilochus, spare me a moment here! I have the worst of news?oh that it was untrue!

You see already, looking round you, how heaven hurtles destruction through the Greeks, while the Trojans



Edwin Morgan 107

triumph. Dead now is Patroclus; grieve deep for that; we had no better man. Hurry off to our ships and ask Achilles to come and take the body at once to his boat Naked it Hes, its armor in the hands of bright-crested Hector."

What horror filled Antilochus when he heard these words! His speech deserted him all this time; tears sprang to his eyes; his strong voice was choked. But this did not prevent him

leaving his arms with his good friend Laodocus who was cantering the hard-hoofed horses near by. From the fields he ran, weeping, with his evil news to Achilles son of Peleus.

Nor did you feel, kingly Menekus, it was your pkce to help the harassed men Antilochus had left, although these Pylians missed him badly. ?No, but he set the noble Thrasymedes to guard them, himself

returning to guard the hero Patroclus. Back he ran to the Ajaxes, and at once told them:

Tve sent him on to the swift ships, a messenger to Hghtf oot Achilles. Will he come? I doubt it.

His anger will stir against great Hector, but then?? He can't fight Trojans with bare fists. We must ourselves, without him, find some means of saving the body and our own Kves too, from the Trojan din and doom."

Great Ajax, Telamon's son, repHed to him then: "All this, most renowned Menekus, is agreed. Now will you and Meriones lift up the body and bear it out of the fight as fast as you can?

Meanwhile, we two at your back will keep great Hector and his Trojans busy. We share one name, one heart, the blades of war have bound us side by side before."

Up went the body onto their shoulders, they strained and panted to lift it as Ajax asked. At once the men of Troy at their heels gave a shout, to see the Greeks take up the corpse, and sprang at them like

hounds that beat young hunters to the wounded boar, prancing



108 TWO FROM HOMER

awhile with ravenous jaws beside it, but cowed when the great beast turns at bay and scatters the pack scuttling pell-mell to safety. So with the Trojans

:

at first they pressed on thickly, striking and stabbing with swords and double-pointed spears, but then they

found the two Ajaxes turned to meet them face to face, and with cheeks gone pale they faltered in their attack, and none rushed forward to claim the body for Troy.

See now the two Greeks stumbling on with Patroclus out from the fight, towards the shelter of the ships,

with the war pulsing about them wild as a fire that leaps up unannounced in a busy city and f astens blazing on houses which melt away in ruinous flames, to the howling of the wind?

so, back they went, under a burden of clamor raised by the clash of men and horses without break. See them like mules exerting all their strength to draw downhiU some log or some great plank for a shipyard, tugging it by a crazy track, till strain and sweat have almost burst their hearts?so they went stumbling

on.

Behind them the Ajaxes held the enemy as a wooded hogback of land bristling across

the open country will stem a flood, checking spates of ruinous rivers, forcing them to turn back down along the fladands?impotently foaming at that firm barrier. The Trojans still attacked, the Ajaxes still defended the rear, but now

against two men who made the task hard: Aeneas Anchises' son, Hector the dazzling. Imagine a cloud of starlings or jackdaws clattering up and crying out in panic at sight of a cruising hawk, the sign of death to birds like them?so Greek with Greek

fled from Aeneas and Hector crying in fear, careless of the fight. And the trench was Uttered round

with good Greek armor as they fled. And war pursued.



Edwin Morgan 109

note:

I have always felt that Homer would want a translation of his

poem, in whatever language, to give a clear account of what is happening, because there is a sort of celebratory down-to earthness which is important to him, naming names, describ

ing movements and gestures, discussing tactics and strategy, and so on, and almost, in his easy power, letting the grandeurs take care of themselves. At any rate, I find that in most if not all existing translations there is something lacking of the

quality of realism and clarity that a man whose subject is tear would want, in addition to "poetry."

E.M.



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