HOMER'S ILIAD COMPLETE

Rhapsody 7

Literally Translated, with Explanatory Notes, by Theodore Alois Buckley

Homer Bilingual Anthology  Studies  Homer in Print

Page 18

But the gods on the contrary sitting beside the thundering Jove, were admiring the mighty work of the brazen-mailed Greeks; but to them Neptune, the earth-shaker, thus began to speak:

"O father Jove, is there any mortal on the boundless earth, who will any more disclose his mind and counsel to the immortals? Dost thou not perceive how the long-haired Greeks have built a wall before their shipping, and have drawn a ditch all round, nor have they given splendid hecatombs to the gods? The fame of this [work] will certainly be wherever light is diffused: but they will forget that [wall] which I and Phoebus Apollo, toiling, built round the city for the hero Laomedon." [264]

Him, greatly enraged, the cloud-compelling Jove addressed:

"Ha! thou far-ruling earth-shaker, what hast thou said? Another of the gods, who is much weaker than thou in hands and in might might have dreaded this idea; but thy glory shall assuredly extend as far as light is diffused. Howbeit, when the crest-waving Greeks shall have departed with their ships into their dear fatherland, do thou, overthrowing this wall, sink it all in the deep, and again cover the great shore with sand. Thus may this mighty rampart of the Greeks be wholly effaced."

[Footnote 264: Grote, Hist. p. 78, well observes that the "subsequent animosity of Neptune against Troy was greatly determined by the sentiment of the injustice of Laomedon." On the discrepancy between this passage and XXI. 442, see Mueller, Dor. vol. i. p. 249]

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