HOMER'S ILIAD COMPLETE

Rhapsody 16

Literally Translated, with Explanatory Notes, by Theodore Alois Buckley

Homer Bilingual Anthology  Studies  Homer in Print

Page 18

Then the large-eyed, venerable Juno answered: "Most dread son of Saturn, what a word hast thou spoken? Whether dost thou wish to liberate from sad death a mortal man long since doomed to fate? Do so; but all we, the other gods, will not assent to it. But another thing I will tell thee, and do thou revolve it in thy mind. If indeed thou sendest this Sarpedon safe home, reflect whether some other of the gods may not also wish to send his beloved son [safe home] from the violent conflict; for many sons of immortals fight round the great city of Priam, upon whom thou wilt bring heavy wrath. If, however, he be dear to thee, and thy heart pities him, let him indeed be subdued in the violent conflict, beneath the hands of Patroclus, the son of Menoetius: but when his spirit and life shall have left him, send death and sweet sleep to bear him until they reach the people of expansive Lycia. There will his brethren and friends perform his obsequies with a tomb and a pillar; for this is the honour of the dead."

Thus she spoke, nor did the father of gods and men disobey; but he poured down upon the earth bloody dew-drops,[531] honouring his beloved son, whom Patroclus was about to slay in fertile-soiled Troy, far away from his native land.

[Footnote 531: There is a similar prodigy in Hesiod, Scut. Here. 384: [Greek: Kadd' ar' ap' ouranothen psiadas balen aimatoessas, Sema titheis polemoio eo megatharsei paidi]. Tzetzes there refers to the present passage, regarding it as ominous of the death of Sarpedon. Cf. Lomeier, De Lustrationibus, xii. p. 143.]

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