HOMER'S ILIAD COMPLETE

Rhapsody 23

Literally Translated, with Explanatory Notes, by Theodore Alois Buckley

Homer Bilingual Anthology  Studies  Homer in Print

Page 4

But him swift-footed Achilles, answering, addressed:

"Why, O venerable friend, hast thou come to me, and commandest each of these things to me? Yet will I readily accomplish all these things for thee, and obey as thou commandest. But stand nearer to me, that embracing each other even for a little while, we may indulge in sad lamentation."

Thus then having spoken, he stretched out with his friendly arms, nor caught him;[729] for the spirit went gibbering[730] beneath the earth, like smoke. Then Achilles sprang up astonished, and clapped together his hands, and spoke this doleful speech:

"Alas! there is indeed then, even in the dwellings of Hades, a certain spirit and image, but there is no body[731] in it at all; for all night the spirit of miserable Patroclus stood by me, groaning and lamenting, and enjoined to me each particular, and was wonderfully like unto himself."

[Footnote 729: Cf. Georg. iv. 499; Aen. ii. 790, iv. 276; Lucan, iii. 34.]

[Footnote 730: See Odyss. xxiv. sub init, where the same word is applied to the shades of the suitors of Penelope.]

[Footnote 731: By [Greek: phrenes] we may understand the power of using reason and judgment, with Duport, Gnom. p. 128, and Jeremy Taylor, Holy Dying, p. 524, ed. Bohn. But ver. 100 seems to require the interpretation which I have followed; Clarke rendering it "praecordia."]

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