Page:The Iliad of Homer in English Hexameter Verse.djvu/34

 So may Atrides' self, their wide-ruling King Agamemnon, Curse that folly which dared to dishonor the bravest Achaian."

Tears suffusing her cheeks, to the chief spake Thetis in answer.

"Why did I bear thee, my son?—or why, having borne, did I rear thee ? Surely thy little life in thy ships, without tears, without sorrow, Might have been lived in peace; since fate is so quickly to claim thee! Doom'd to a death premature, more than all doom'd in life to affliction, Thine is a hapless fate;—to a destiny sad have I borne thee! Yet will I urge this suit, on the snow-crowned peaks of Olympus, Unto the Thunderer, Zeus:—and perchance he will hear my entreaty. Only do thou, O my son, stay here by thy swift-sailing galleys; Nourish thy hate to Achaia; refrain altogether from battle. Unto Oceanus , Zeus, 'mid the blameless Æthiop people, Yesterday went to a feast, and the rest of the Deities with him . Upon the twelfth morn thence he will surely return to Olympus: Then will I go unto Zeus, in his glittering dome will I seek him; Cling to the knees of the God, and methinks he will grant my petition."

Thus did the Goddess speak; and she left her son still in his anger, Grieved to his inmost soul for the fair-form'd maid who had left him; Left him, parted by force.—Meanwhile did the subtle Odysseus Make for the port of Chrysa, with hecatombs vowed to Apollo. Soon they arrived at the port,—at the port so deep in its soundings; Furl'd up the sails, and stow'd them away in the hold of the galley: Down let the mast to the crutch—down quickly by aid of the halyards; Deftly directed the ship by the oars to the place of the moorage;