Iliad I Author:Homer Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: ILIAD I. Tell us, thou goddess, in song of the ruinous wrath of Achilles, Son of Peleus ; which entailed woes unnumbered upon the Achaians ; Unto the da... more »rkness below remanding the shades of the valiant; While to the dogs and the birds the heroes themselves were abandoned ; Left to be preyed on: albeit the purpose of Zeus was fulfilling. This all began at the time when the monarch of men, son of Atreus, Quarrelled with godlike Achilles and brought on their fatal estrangement. 2. Which of the gods was it then, so to set them a striving and fighting ? The offspring of Leto and Zeus ; for he gainst the king was embittered : So from the ground of the camp he evolved a mephitic miasma ; Clear up and down through the lines ; and of it the people were dying. This was because he would punish the slight to his minister Chryses ; Who by the son of Atreus had been very despitefully treated. 3. Chryses had come to the ships, to the swift-sailing ships of the Argives: Ransoms unmeasured by price had he brought for redeeming his daughter ; Taking along in his hand the fillets of radiant Apollo, Strung on a sceptre of gold. He pleaded with all the Achaians ; But most with the sons of Atreus, who marshal the people in order. 4. Ye sons of Atreus, and ye others, whom men call the well-greaved Achaians, Unto you may the gift of the gods who abide in Olympian dwellings Be the power to destroy root and branch Priam's town and go homeward in safety : But restore me the child of my heart, and for her take the ransom I bring you ; For thus shall ye keep in the fear of the Zeus-born, the radiant Apollo. 5. Then the feelings of justice and awe brought a verdict from all the Achaians : The priest should be held in res...« less