Priam's city to raze, and return unscathed to your

homesteads :

Only my own dear daughter I ask; take ransom

and yield her,

Rev'rencing His great name, son of Zeus, fardarting Apollo."

Then from the host of Achaians arose tumultuous

answer:

"Due to the priest is his honour; accept rich

ransom and yield her."

But there was war in the spirit of Atreus' son,

Agamemnon;

Disdainful he dismissed him, a right stern fiat

appending :

"Woe be to thee, old man, if I find thee lingering

longer,

Yea or returning again, by the hollow ships of

Achaians!

Scarce much then will avail thee the great god's

sceptre and emblem.

Her will I never release. Old age must first come

upon her,

In my own home, yea in Argos, afar from the land

of her fathers,

Following the loom, and attending upon my bed. But avaunt thee!

Go, and provoke not me, that thy way may be haply

securer."

These were the words of the king, and the old

man feared and obeyed him:

Voiceless he went by the shore of the great dull

echoing ocean,

Thither he got him apart, that ancient man; and a

long prayer

Prayed to Apollo his Lord, son of golden-ringleted

Leto:

"Lord of the silver bow, whose arm girds Chryse

and Cilla,

Cilla, loved of the Gods,-and in might sways

Tenedos, hearken!

Oh! if, in days gone by, I have built from floor

unto cornice,

Smintheus, a fair shrine for thee; or burned in the

flames of the altar

Fat flesh of bulls and of goats; then do this thing that I ask thee:

Hurl on the Greeks thy shafts, that thy servant's tears be avenged!"

So did he pray, and his prayer reached the ears

of Phoebus Apollo.

Dark was the soul of the god as he moved from the heights of Olympus,

Shouldering a bow, and a quiver on this side fast and on that side.

Onward in anger he moved. And the arrows,

stirred by the motion,

Rattled and rang on his shoulder: he came as

cometh the midnight.

Hard by the ships he stayed him, and loosed one

shaft from the bow-string;

Harshly the stretched string twanged of the bow

all silvery-shining;

First fell his wrath on the mules, and the swift

footed hound of the herdsman;

Afterward smote he the host.

With a rankling

arrow he smote them

Aye; and the morn and the even were red with the glare of the corpse-fires.

Nine days over the host sped the shafts of the

god and the tenth day

Dawned; and Achilles said, "Be a council called of the people."

(Such thought came to his mind from the goddess,

Hera the white-armed,

Hera who loved those Greeks, and who saw them

dying around her.)

So when all were collected and ranged in a solemn

assembly,

Straightway rose up amidst them and spake swift

footed Achilles :

"Atreus' son! it were better, I think this day,

that we wandered

Back, re-seeking our homes, (if a warfare may be

avoided);

Now when the sword and the plague, these two

things, fight with Achaians.

Come, let us seek out now some priest, some seer

amongst us,

Yea or a dreamer of dreams-for a dream too cometh

of God's hand

Whence we may learn what hath angered in this

wise Phœbus Apollo.

Whether mayhap he reprove us of prayer or of

oxen unoffered;