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The Iliad of Homer

  
[title page]
  
PREFATORY NOTE

 1. 
BOOK I.
 2. 
BOOK II.
 3. 
BOOK III.
 4. 
BOOK IV.
 5. 
BOOK V.
 6. 
BOOK VI.
 7. 
BOOK VII.
 8. 
BOOK VIII.
 9. 
BOOK IX.
 10. 
BOOK X.
 11. 
BOOK XI.
 12. 
BOOK XII.
 13. 
BOOK XIII.
 14. 
BOOK XIV.
 15. 
BOOK XV.
 16. 
BOOK XVI.
 17. 
BOOK XVII.
 18. 
BOOK XVIII.
 19. 
BOOK XIX.
 20. 
BOOK XX.
 21. 
BOOK XXI.
 22. 
BOOK XXII.
 23. 
BOOK XXIII.
 24. 
BOOK XXIV.

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PREFATORY NOTE

v

The execution of this version of the ILIAD has been entrusted to the three Translators in the following three parts:

  • Books I. - IX. . . . . W. Leaf.
  • " X. - XVI. . . . . A. Lang.
  • " XVII. - XXIV. . . . . E. Myers.

Each Translator is therefore responsible for his own portion; but the whole has been revised by all three Translators, and the rendering of passages or phrases recurring in more than one portion has been determined after deliberation in common. Even in these, however, a certain elasticity has been deemed desirable.

On a few doubtful points, though very rarely, the opinion of two of the translators has had to be adopted to the suppression of that held by the third. Thus, for instance, the Translator of Books X. - XVI.

vi

would have preferred "c" and "us" to "k" and "os" in the spelling of all proper names.

The text followed has been that of La Roche (Leipzig, 1873), except where the adoption of a different reading has been specified in a footnote. Where the balance of evidence, external and internal, has seemed to the Translator to be against the genuineness of the passage, such passage has been enclosed in brackets [].

The Translator of Books X. - XVI. Has to thank Mr. R.W. Raper, Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford, for his valuable aid in revising the proof-sheets of these Books.

vii

viii

The sacred soil of Ilios is rent
With shaft and pit; foiled waters wander slow
Through plains where Simois and Scamander went
To war with gods and heroes long ago.
Not yet to dark Cassandra lying low
In rich Mycenae do the Fates relent;
The bones of Agamemnon are a show,
And ruined is his royal monument.
The dust and awful treasures of the dead
Hath learning scattered wide; but vainly thee,
Homer, she meteth with her Lesbian lead,
And strives to rend thy songs, too blind is she
To know the crown on thine immortal head
Of indivisible supremacy.
A.L.
Athwart the sunrise of our western day
The form of great Achilles, high and clear,
Stands forth in arms, wielding the Pelian spear.
The sanguine tides of that immortal fray,
Swept on by gods, around him surge and sway,
Wherethrough the helms of many a warrior peer,
Strong men and swift, their tossing plumes uprear.
But stronger, swifter, goodlier he than they,
More awful, more divine. Yet mark anigh;
Some fiery pang hath rent his soul within,
Some hovering shade his brows encompasseth.
What gifts hath Fate for all his chivalry?
Even such as hearts heroic oftenest win;
Honour, a friend, anguish, untimely death.
E.M.
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