The Iliad of Homer

The Iliad of Homer (1873), by
Homer

The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Iliad of Homer (1873), by Homer
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
Title: The Iliad of Homer (1873)
Author: Homer
Translator: Theodore Alois Buckley
Release Date: August 23, 2007 [EBook #22382]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ILIAD
OF HOMER (1873) ***

Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Rénald Lévesque and the Online
Distributed Proofreaders Europe at http://dp.rastko.net.

[Illustration: Homer by Hinchliff]

THE ILIAD OF HOMER,
Literally Translated, WITH EXPLANATORY NOTES.
BY
THEODORE ALOIS BUCKLEY, B.A. OF CHRIST CHURCH.
LONDON: BELL AND DALDY, YORK STREET, COVENT
GARDEN. 1873.
LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS,
STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.

PREFACE.
The present translation of the Iliad will, it is hoped, be found to convey,
more accurately than any which has preceded it, the words and
thoughts of the original. It is based upon a careful examination of
whatever has been contributed by scholars of every age towards the
elucidation of the text, including the ancient scholiasts and
lexicographers, the exegetical labours of Barnes and Clarke, and the
elaborate criticisms of Heyne, Wolf, and their successors.
The necessary brevity of the notes has prevented the full discussion of
many passages where there is great room for difference of opinion, and
hence several interpretations are adopted without question, which, had
the editor's object been to write a critical commentary, would have
undergone a more lengthened examination. The same reason has
compelled him, in many instances, to substitute references for extracts,
indicating rather than quoting those storehouses of information, from
whose abundant contents he would gladly have drawn more copious
supplies. Among the numerous works to which he has had recourse, the
following deserve particular mention-Alberti's invaluable edition of
Hesychius, the Commentary of Eustathius, and Buttmann's Lexilogus.
In the succeeding volume, the Odyssey, Hymns, and minor poems will

be produced in a similar manner.
THEODORE ALOIS BUCKLEY, Ch. Ch., Oxford.

THE ILIAD OF HOMER.

BOOK THE FIRST.
ARGUMENT.
Apollo, enraged at the insult offered to his priest, Chryses, sends a
pestilence upon the Greeks. A council is called, and Agamemnon,
being compelled to restore the daughter of Chryses, whom he had taken
from him, in revenge deprives Achilles of Hippodameia. Achilles
resigns her, but refuses to aid the Greeks in battle, and at his request,
his mother, Thetis, petitions Jove to honour her offended son at the
expense of the Greeks. Jupiter, despite the opposition of Juno, grants
her request.
Sing, O goddess, the destructive wrath of Achilles, son of Peleus,
which brought countless woes upon the Greeks,[1] and hurled many
valiant souls of heroes down to Hades, and made themselves[2] a prey
to dogs and to all birds [but the will of Jove was being accomplished],
from the time when Atrides, king of men, and noble Achilles, first
contending, were disunited.
[Footnote 1: Although, as Ernesti observes, the verb [Greek: proiapsen]
does not necessarily contain the idea of a premature death, yet the
ancient interpreters are almost unanimous in understanding it so. Thus
Eustathius, p. 13, ed. Bas.: [Greek: meta blazês eis Aioên pro to
deontos epemphen, ôs tês protheseôs] (i.e. pro) [Greek: kairikon ti
dêlousês, ê aplôs epemphen, ôs pleonazousês tês protheseôs.] Hesych. t.
ii. p. 1029, s. n.: [Greek: proiapsen--dêloi de dia tês lezeos tên met'
odunês autôn apoleian]. Cf. Virg. Æn. xii. 952: "Vitaque cum gemitu
fugit indignata sub umbras," where Servius well observes, "quia

discedebat a juvene: nam volunt philosophi, invitam animam discedere
a corpore, cum quo adhuc habitare legibus naturæ poterat." I have,
however, followed Ernesti, with the later commentators.]
[Footnote 2: I.e. their bodies. Cf. Æ. i. 44, vi. 362, where there is a
similar sense of the pronoun.]
Which, then, of the gods, engaged these two in strife, so that they
should fight?[3] The son of Latona and Jove; for he, enraged with the
king, stirred up an evil pestilence through the army [and the people
kept perishing][4]; because the son of Atreus had dishonoured the
priest Chryses: for he came to the swift ships of the Greeks to ransom
his daughter, and bringing invaluable ransoms, having in his hands the
fillets of far-darting Apollo on his golden sceptre. And he supplicated
all the Greeks, but chiefly the two sons of Atreus, the leaders of the
people:
"Ye sons of Atreus, and ye other well-greaved Greeks, to you indeed
may the gods, possessing the heavenly dwellings, grant to destroy the
city of Priam, and to return home safely: but for me, liberate my
beloved