HOMER'S ILIAD COMPLETE

Rhapsody 23

Literally Translated, with Explanatory Notes, by Theodore Alois Buckley

Homer Bilingual Anthology  Studies  Homer in Print

Page 17

"O friends, leaders and chieftains of the Greeks, do I alone recognize the horses, or do ye also? Different steeds indeed appear to me to be foremost, and there seems a different charioteer; but those [mares] which hitherto were successful, are probably hurt upon the plain somewhere: for surely I first saw them turning round the goal, but now I can no longer see them, although my eyes survey the Trojan plain as I gaze around. Surely the reins have fled the charioteer, and he could not rein well round the goal, and did not succeed in turning. There I imagine he fell out, and at the same time broke his chariot, whilst they (the mares) bolted, when fury seized their mind. But do ye also, standing up, look, for I cannot well distinguish; it appears to me to be an Aetolian hero by birth, and [who] rules amongst the Argives, the son of horse-breaking Tydeus, gallant Diomede."

But him swift Ajax, the son of Oileus, bitterly reproached:

"Idomeneus, why dost thou prate endlessly?[755] Those high-prancing mares run over the vast plain afar. Neither art thou so much the youngest amongst the Greeks, nor do thine eyes see most sharply from thy head: but thou art always prating with words. Nor is it at all necessary for thee to be a prater, for others better than thou are present. For the mares of Eumelus are still[756] foremost, which were so before, and he himself is advancing, holding the reins."

But him the leader of the Cretans, indignant, answered in turn:

"Ajax, best at abuse, reviler, but in all other things thou art inferior to the Greeks, because thy temper is morose; come now, let us stake a tripod[757] or a goblet, and let us both appoint Agamemnon, the son of Atreus, arbiter, which horses are foremost; that paying, thou mayest learn."

[Footnote 755: "[Greek: Paros] implies habit, as in i. 553, particularly in connection with a verb of such import, as in xviii. 425."—Kennedy.]

[Footnote 756: This is implied in [Greek: per].]

[Footnote 757: "Ut supra, xxii. 254, erat [Greek: epidosthai], pro [Greek: dosthai martyras epi tini chremati], sic nunc [Greek: tripodos peridometha] est [Greek: dometha orkon peri trimodos], quem poenae loco daturus erit uter nostrum temere contenderit."—Heyne.]

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