Homer’s Iliad
Translated by John Benson Rose
For Private Circulation
London 1874
[Sample from the Opening of the Poem]
HOMER’S
ILIAD.
BOOK I.
Now, goddess, sing of wrath, Achilles’ wrath,
Fatal unto Achaians; and which sent
A host of souls of heroes unto Hades;
Their bodies left to vultures and to dogs;
Such was the will divine—since first began
Discord between Atreides, chief of men,
And the divine Pèleides; by what god
Urged and impelled, O goddess, now declare.
The son of Zeus and Leto, in his wrath
Shed dread contagion down upon the king
And on the hosts—destroying multitudes—
For the offence Atreides cast upon
Chryses, his priest. Who sought the Achaian fleet
With ransom for his daughter; in his hand
Bearing the golden sceptre and the wreath
Of the far-darting god. He bent to all
The host Achaian—but addressed himself
Unto the chief of all, the brother kings.
“Atreides, and Achaians, mighty-greaved,
So may the gods who in Olympus dwell
Grant Priameian spoil and heights to you
As ye shall yield my daughter, for the love
Of the far-darting son of Zeus—Apollo.”
And to his prayer the Achaians gave assent
To take the holy and the bounteous price;
Save Agamemnon ; the Atreidan king
Refused with words of censure and rebuke:
“Away, old man, nor let me find you here
Hanging about our hosts, and hollow barks,
Lest that thy golden sceptre and the wreath,
The emblems of thy god, protect thee not.
Thy daughter is my captive—until she
In Argos shall grow old, my fatherland;
There at the loom, and partner of my bed
To bide whilst me it please. Now, hence, away.”
He spoke, and the old man withdrew in dread
And trod the shores of the unquiet sea,
And there the old man loosed his words in prayer
Unto his lord Apollo, son of Leto:
“Lord of the silver bow, whom Chrysa’s shores,
And Cilla the divine, and Tenedos,
Own for their god, O Smintheus! if I e’er
Graced with my off ring thy holy fane
And on thy shrine shed fat of bulls and goats,
Hear now my prayer, and on the Danaan host
Launch forth thy shaft, revengeful of my tears.”
He prayed and he was heard. From high Olympus
Phœbus Apollo with resounding bow
And quiver full, descended, in his might
And anger there, rattled the pent-up shafts
As he approached with brow as black as night;
And when he saw the ships he loosed the string
And the dart parted from the silver bow.
He smote the wards and sentries, nor ceased from man
Until the pyres of death blazed far and wide.
REVIEW COMMENT
Rose’s text offers no preface, but does have a cryptic
and eloquent epigraph: “Adding his tears unto the needless stream.” That, I
would say, just about sums up the translation.
Readers who wish to access the full text of Rose’s
translation should use the following link: Rose
Iliad.