Book VIII

Zeus bans the gods from the battle; the golden scales tip against the Achaeans; the Trojans camp on the plain under a thousand watchfires.

Translator’s note on Book 8

Book 8 exists to reverse the war's flow and set up everything that follows: Zeus takes the field-glass seat on Ida, forbids divine interference on pain of Tartarus, tips his golden scales, and by nightfall the Trojans — for the first time in ten years — are camped in the open plain. Ancient critics disliked the book intensely (its nickname was "the docked battle"), and the apparatus shows the highest athetesis-density of any book so far: the golden-cord boast, Zeus's smiling "I am not in earnest," the four named horses, Andromache's fodder, the whole Iris relay, the Heracles digression, and even the shepherd's gladness in the watchfire simile all drew critical daggers. This translation keeps the printed text entire and records each mark; what the critics read as padding largely reads now as the book's system: everything in it — the cord, the scales, the thunder repeated three times, the prophecy — performs Zeus's singular, uncontested weight.

Two disclosures anchor the book. At 475-478 Zeus names the plot of the rest of the poem: Hector will not stop "until the swift-footed son of Peleus rises beside the ships... over Patroclus fallen" — the first explicit statement of Patroclus's death, delivered as decree eight books before the event (note 26). And at 161-166 stands the one passage flagged for this book in disputed_lines.md: Hector's taunt to Diomedes ("you were a woman after all... painted doll"), athetized by Aristophanes and Aristarchus, with Zenodotus's variant close (note 10). The book ends on the poem's most famous nocturne — the watchfires like stars around the moon, the shepherd glad at heart (a gladness Zenodotus deleted), a thousand fires, fifty men at each, and the horses waiting for Dawn (notes [30], [31]).

Repetition discipline mattered here: the Athena arming scene reuses Book 5's lines and this translation's Book 5 English verbatim; Iris relays Zeus's threat word for word and adds one line of her own venom; and the Hera-Athena murmuring scene repeats 4.20-24 exactly. New register entries: saffron-robed Dawn, "much-enduring brilliant Odysseus" (first Iliad occurrence, in the awkward scene where he fails to hear Diomedes — note 7), the golden scales, and "fair-throned Dawn" closing the book.

1Dawn in her saffron robe was spreading over all the earth¹

when Zeus who delights in thunder made an assembly of the gods

on the topmost peak of many-ridged Olympus;

and he spoke to them himself, and all the gods gave ear:

5"Hear me, all you gods and all you goddesses,

so I may say what the heart in my chest commands me.

Let no female god attempt — and no male either —

to cut across this word of mine: all of you together

assent to it, so I may bring these things quickly to their end.

10Whomever I mark trying, apart from the gods, by his own choice,

to go and help either Trojans or Danaans,

struck out of all order he shall come back to Olympus —

or I will take and hurl him into misty Tartarus,

far down, where the deepest pit yawns under the earth,

15where the gates are iron and the threshold bronze,

as far beneath Hades as heaven is above the earth:²

then he will know how far I am strongest of all gods.

Or come, try it, gods — so all of you may know:

hang a golden cord down out of heaven

20and lay hold of it, all you gods and all you goddesses:

you could not drag out of heaven down to the plain

Zeus the counselor most high — not if you wore yourselves out.

But whenever I chose to pull in earnest,

I would haul you up, and the earth and the sea with you;

25then I would bind the cord around a horn of Olympus,

and the whole of it would hang in the air.

By so much am I beyond gods, and beyond men."³

So he spoke, and they all went still in silence,

marveling at his word: he had spoken with great power.

30At long last the goddess grey-eyed Athena spoke:

"Father of us all, son of Cronos, highest of the mighty:

well do we know your strength is not to be bent;

but even so we grieve for the Danaan spearmen

who will fill up an evil doom and perish.

35Yes: we will hold back from the war, as you command;

but we will put counsel into the Argives — such as will help them —

so they do not all perish under your anger."

Smiling, Zeus the cloud-gatherer answered her:

"Take heart, Tritogeneia, dear child: I do not speak

40with a set purpose; and toward you I mean to be gentle."⁴

So speaking he yoked beneath his car the bronze-hoofed horses,

swift-flying, with manes streaming gold,

and clothed himself in gold, and took the whip,

gold, well-wrought, and mounted the chariot,

45and whipped the horses on; and the two flew, nothing loath,

between the earth and the starry sky.

He came to Ida of the many springs, mother of wild things,

to Gargaron, where his precinct is, and his smoking altar.⁵

There the father of men and gods halted his horses,

50loosed them from the car, and poured thick mist around them;

and he sat on the peaks, exulting in his glory,

looking out at the Trojans' city and the ships of the Achaeans.

Now the long-haired Achaeans took their meal

quickly through the huts, and armed themselves straight after;

55and the Trojans on their side armed through the city,

fewer — yet even so they were mad to join battle,

under hard necessity, for their children and their wives.

All the gates were flung open, and the host streamed out,

foot-soldiers and horsemen; and a great din arose.

60And when they had come together into one place,

they dashed together shields, and spears, and the fury of men

armored in bronze; the bossed shields

pressed hard on one another, and a great din arose.

There rose together the groaning and the boasting of men

65killing and killed, and the earth ran with blood.

So long as it was morning, and the sacred day still growing,

so long the missiles of both sides struck home, and the people fell.

But when the Sun bestrode the middle of heaven,

then the father stretched out his golden scales,

70and set in them two fates of death that lays men low,

one for the horse-taming Trojans, one for the bronze-shirted Achaeans,

and took the middle and pulled; and the Achaeans' day of doom sank.⁶

The Achaeans' fates settled down on the earth

that feeds so many, and the Trojans' rose toward the wide sky.

75And he thundered aloud from Ida, and sent a blazing

flash among the Achaean host; and they saw it

and were stunned, and green fear took hold of them all.

Then neither Idomeneus dared stand, nor Agamemnon,

nor the two Ajaxes hold their ground, squires of Ares:

80Nestor alone stayed, the Gerenian, warden of the Achaeans —

in no way willing: his horse was failing, shot by an arrow

from brilliant Alexandros, lovely-haired Helen's husband,

on the very crown of the head, where a horse's first hairs

grow on the skull — the deadliest spot of all.

85It reared in agony as the shaft went into the brain,

and threw the team into chaos, writhing around the bronze.

And while the old man leapt with his sword to cut away

the trace-horse, Hector's swift horses came on

through the rout, carrying their bold driver —

90Hector. And there the old man would have lost his life,

had not Diomedes, good at the war-cry, been quick to see.

He shouted terribly, calling Odysseus on:

"Zeus-sprung son of Laertes, Odysseus of many devices —

where are you running, your back turned, like a coward in the crowd?

95Take care no one plants a spear in that back as you flee!

Stand, till we beat this wild man off the old one."

So he spoke; and much-enduring brilliant Odysseus did not hear,⁷

but swept on past, toward the hollow ships of the Achaeans.

Then Tydeus' son, alone as he was, mixed with the front-fighters

100and made his stand before the horses of the old man, Neleus' son,

and speaking winged words he addressed him:

"Old man, the young fighters are wearing you hard;

your force is unstrung, and hard old age attends you;

your aide is feeble now, and your horses slow.

105Come, get up into my car, and see

what the horses of Tros are like, how they know their plain —⁸

how to wheel fast this way and that, in pursuit or flight.

I took the pair from Aeneas — those two machines of rout.

Let our aides look after yours; these two

110we will drive straight at the horse-taming Trojans, so that even Hector

may know whether my spear too rages in my hands."

So he spoke, and the Gerenian horseman Nestor did not disobey.

Then their two aides looked after Nestor's mares,

strong Sthenelus, and Eurymedon the kindly;

115and the two of them mounted Diomedes' chariot.

Nestor took the glossy reins into his hands

and whipped the horses; and quickly they closed with Hector.

Straight at him, as he charged, the son of Tydeus cast:

him he missed — but his driver and aide,

120Eniopeus, son of high-hearted Thebaeus,

he struck in the chest by the nipple as he held the reins.

He crashed from the car, and the swift-footed horses

shied back; and there his life and strength were unstrung.

And terrible grief closed over Hector's heart for his driver;

125but he left him lying there, though grieving for his companion,

and went after a bold driver in his place; nor did his horses

lack a master long: for soon he found

bold Archeptolemus, Iphitus' son, and set him up

behind the swift horses, and gave the reins into his hands.

130And now there would have been ruin, deeds beyond remedy,

and they would have been penned in Ilion like lambs,

had not the father of men and gods been quick to see.

Thundering terribly he let fly a white-hot bolt

and dashed it to the ground before the horses of Diomedes;

135and a terrible flame rose up of burning sulphur,

and the two horses, terrified, cowered under the car.

The glossy reins slipped out of Nestor's hands,

and he was afraid at heart, and said to Diomedes:

"Tydeus' son — come, turn the single-hoofed horses to flight.

140Do you not see? Victory out of Zeus does not go with you.

Today it is that man Zeus, Cronos' son, hands the glory —

today; later, if he chooses, he will give it

to us in turn. No man can fend off the purpose of Zeus,

not even the strongest: for he is stronger by far."⁹

145Then answered him Diomedes, good at the war-cry:

"Yes, old man — all this you have said rightly and in due measure.

But this bitter grief comes over my heart and spirit:

Hector one day will say, speaking among the Trojans:

'Tydeus' son ran before me to his ships.'

150So he will boast one day. Then let the wide earth gape for me."

Then answered him the Gerenian horseman Nestor:

"Ah me, war-minded Tydeus' son — what a thing to say.

Even if Hector calls you coward and weakling,

the Trojans will never believe him, nor the Dardanians,

155nor the wives of the great-hearted Trojan shieldmen

whose husbands in their strength you tumbled in the dust."

So speaking he turned the single-hoofed horses to flight

back through the rout; and the Trojans and Hector after them

with unearthly clamor poured their groaning missiles.

160And over him great Hector of the flashing helmet shouted:

"Tydeus' son — the Danaans of swift colts honored you

beyond all others, with the seat, the meats, the full cups.

Now they will dishonor you: you were a woman after all.

Away with you, painted doll! Never, with me not yielding,

165shall you scale our towers, never carry off our women

in your ships: before that, I will deal you your doom."¹⁰

So he spoke; and Tydeus' son was torn two ways,

whether to wheel the horses and fight him face to face.

Three times he pondered it in mind and heart,

170and three times from the mountains of Ida Zeus the counselor thundered,

giving his sign to the Trojans: victory that turns the battle's tide.¹¹

And Hector called to the Trojans with a far-carrying shout:

"Trojans and Lycians and Dardanians who fight at close quarters —

be men, my friends; remember your rushing courage.

175I know that the son of Cronos has bowed his head and promised me

victory and great glory — and grief for the Danaans.

The fools! — contriving those walls of theirs,

feeble things, not worth a thought: they will not hold my fury,

and our horses will lightly leap the ditch they dug.

180But when I have come among their hollow ships,

then let there be some memory of burning fire,

so I may fire the ships and kill the men themselves —

the Argives by their ships, dazed in the smoke."

So speaking he called to his horses, and named them:

185"Xanthus, and you, Podargus, and Aethon, and brilliant Lampus:¹²

now pay me back your keep — all the care and plenty

of Andromache, great-hearted Eëtion's daughter,

who set the honey-hearted wheat before you first,

and mixed wine for you to drink when your hearts commanded —

190before me, and I claim to be her strong young husband.¹³

After them now, at full stretch, so we may take

the shield of Nestor, whose fame now reaches heaven —

solid gold, they say, the cross-rods and the shield itself —

and off the shoulders of Diomedes, breaker of horses,

195the wrought corslet Hephaestus labored to make.¹⁴

Could we take those two things, I should hope to put the Achaeans

aboard their swift ships this very night."

So he spoke in his vaunting; and the lady Hera was outraged:

she shook on her throne and made high Olympus tremble,

200and spoke straight out to the great god Poseidon:

"Shame, wide-ruling earth-shaker — not even you,

in your own chest, grieve for the Danaans as they die.

Yet to you, to Helice and Aegae, they bring gifts up,¹⁵

many and pleasing; then wish them victory now.

205If only we chose — all of us who stand by the Danaans —

to thrust the Trojans back and hold off wide-seeing Zeus,

he could sit there and sulk, alone on Ida."

Deeply troubled, the lord earth-shaker answered her:

"Hera, reckless of tongue — what a word you have spoken!

210I would not choose to have the rest of us fight

Zeus, Cronos' son: for he is stronger by far."

So they spoke such things to one another;

and all the space the ditch walled off between wall and ships

filled with a crush of horses and shield-bearing men

215penned in: and the penner was Hector, Priam's son,

the equal of quick Ares, now that Zeus gave him glory.

And he would have burned the balanced ships with blazing fire,

had not the lady Hera put it in Agamemnon's mind

to bestir himself and rouse the Achaeans, quickly.

220He went his way along the huts and ships of the Achaeans

holding a great purple cloak in his heavy hand,

and stood on Odysseus's black ship, huge of hull,

which lay midmost, so a shout could carry to both ends,

both to the huts of Ajax, Telamon's son,

225and to Achilles' — for they had drawn their balanced ships up

at the ends, trusting their courage and the strength of their hands.¹⁶

There he called to the Danaans, piercing-clear:

"Shame, Argives! Vile disgraces — admired only for your looks!

Where have the boasts gone, when we said we were the best —

230the boasts you made on Lemnos, all empty wind,¹⁷

eating your fill of the flesh of straight-horned oxen,

drinking the bowls brimmed over with wine:

that each of you would stand against a hundred Trojans

in battle — two hundred! Now we are not worth one:

235Hector, who soon will fire the ships with blazing flame.

Father Zeus — was there ever another great king

you blinded with blindness like this, and stripped of his great glory?

And yet I say I never passed one beautiful altar of yours

on my luckless way here in my many-benched ship:

240on every one I burned the fat and the thighs of oxen,

in my longing to sack well-walled Troy.

But Zeus — grant me at least this wish:

let these men at least escape and get away;

do not let the Achaeans be broken by the Trojans so."

245So he spoke; and the father pitied his weeping,

and nodded: the host should be saved, and not perish.

At once he sent an eagle — surest of omens among birds —

holding a fawn in its talons, young of a running deer;

beside the beautiful altar of Zeus it dropped the fawn,

250where the Achaeans made offering to Zeus of All Voices.¹⁸

And when they saw that the bird had come from Zeus,

they leapt the more on the Trojans, and remembered their fighting.

Then no Danaan there, many as they were, could boast

he was before Tydeus' son in holding his swift horses,

255driving them across the ditch, and fighting face to face:

far the first, he took a Trojan armored fighter,

Agelaus, Phradmon's son, just wheeling his horses to flight:

as he turned, the spear fixed in his back

between the shoulders and drove through his chest;

260he crashed from the car, and his armor clattered upon him.

After him came the sons of Atreus, Agamemnon and Menelaus;

after them the two Ajaxes, clothed in rushing courage;

after them Idomeneus, and Idomeneus' comrade

Meriones, the equal of Enyalius, slayer of men;

265after them Eurypylus, Euaemon's shining son;

and ninth came Teucer, bending his back-sprung bow,

and took his stand under the shield of Ajax, Telamon's son.

Ajax would edge the shield aside; and the hero,

when he had scanned his man and shot into the crowd

270and hit him — the man dropped where he stood and lost his life —

then back he would slip, like a child to his mother,¹⁹

to Ajax; and Ajax hid him with the shining shield.

Whom first of the Trojans did blameless Teucer take?

Orsilochus first, and Ormenus, and Ophelestes,

275Daetor and Chromius and godlike Lycophontes,

and Amopaon, Polyaemon's son, and Melanippus —

all these, one on another, he brought down to the earth that feeds so many.

And seeing him the lord of men Agamemnon rejoiced

as he wrecked the Trojan companies from his strong bow;

280and he came and stood beside him and spoke his word:

"Teucer, dear heart, Telamon's son, marshal of the people:

keep shooting like that — and be a light to the Danaans,

and to your father Telamon, who reared you when you were little

and cared for you in his own house, bastard though you were:

285set him in the way of glory, far off as he is.

And I will tell you outright, and it will be accomplished:

if aegis-bearing Zeus and Athena grant me

to sack the well-built citadel of Ilion,

first after myself I will set a prize of honor in your hands —

290a tripod, or a pair of horses with their chariot,

or a woman, to climb into one bed with you."

Answering him spoke blameless Teucer:

"Most glorious son of Atreus — why urge me on when I am

eager myself? So far as the strength is in me

295I do not stop: from the hour we pushed them back toward Ilion,

from then I have watched with my bow, and killed my men.

Eight long-barbed arrows I have loosed by now,

and all of them fixed in the flesh of quick young fighters;

but this mad dog I cannot hit."

300He spoke, and shot another arrow from the string

straight at Hector, his heart aching to hit him:

him he missed — but blameless Gorgythion,

Priam's brave son, he struck in the chest with the arrow —

the son his wedded mother bore, brought from Aesyme,

305beautiful Castianeira, in body like the goddesses.

And as a poppy in a garden lets its head fall sideways,

heavy with its own seed and the rains of spring,

so his head bowed to one side under the weight of the helmet.²⁰

And Teucer shot another arrow from the string

310straight at Hector, his heart aching to hit him;

but this one too he missed — Apollo brushed it wide —

and struck bold Archeptolemus, Hector's driver,

as he swept into battle, in the chest by the nipple.

He crashed from the car, and the swift-footed horses

315shied back; and there his life and strength were unstrung.

And terrible grief closed over Hector's heart for his driver;

but he left him lying there, though grieving for his companion,

and called to his brother Cebriones, who was near,

to take the horses' reins; and he heard, and did not disobey.

320Hector himself leapt down from the shining chariot

with a terrible cry, and caught up a boulder in his hand,

and went straight for Teucer, his heart driving him to strike.

Teucer had drawn a bitter arrow from the quiver

and laid it on the string; and just as he drew, Hector

325of the flashing helmet struck him with the jagged stone

beside the shoulder, where the collarbone parts the neck

and chest, the deadliest spot of all, as he aimed at him,

and snapped the bowstring; his hand went numb at the wrist;

he dropped to his knees and stayed, and the bow fell from his hand.

330But Ajax did not neglect his fallen brother:

running, he stood over him and covered him with the shield.

Then two loyal companions stooped beneath him,

Mecisteus, Echius' son, and brilliant Alastor,

and carried him, groaning heavily, to the hollow ships.

335And once more the Olympian woke fury in the Trojans,

and they pushed the Achaeans straight on the deep ditch;

and Hector went among the first, glorying in his strength.

As when a hound with quick feet presses a wild boar

or a lion from behind, snapping at flank

340and buttock, and watches for the moment it turns,

so Hector pressed the long-haired Achaeans,

killing always the hindmost as they fled.

But when they had crossed the stakes and the ditch, running,

and many were broken under Trojan hands,

345they halted and held their ground beside the ships,

calling to one another, and lifting their hands

to all the gods, each man prayed aloud;

and Hector wheeled his lovely-maned horses this way and that,

with the eyes of the Gorgon, or of Ares bane of mortals.²¹

350And seeing them the goddess white-armed Hera pitied them,

and quickly spoke winged words to Athena:

"Shame — child of aegis-bearing Zeus! Shall the two of us

no longer care for the Danaans dying, even at the last?

They will fill up an evil doom and perish

355under one man's onset — this Hector, Priam's son,

raging now past all bearing; and great evil he has done already."

Then the goddess grey-eyed Athena answered her:

"That man might well have lost his fury and his life,

broken at Argive hands, dead in his own fatherland —

360but my father rages with no good mind:

the hard god, forever the sinner, thwarter of my purposes.

He remembers nothing of all the times I saved his son

worn to breaking under Eurystheus's labors:

he would cry up to heaven, and Zeus would send me

365down out of heaven to stand by him and help.

If my crafty mind had only known all this

that time Eurystheus sent him down to the house of Hades the gate-closer,

to bring out of Erebus the hound of hateful Hades —

he would not have escaped the sheer waters of the Styx.²²

370But now Zeus loathes me, and works out the plans of Thetis,

who kissed his knees, and took his chin in her hand,

begging him to give honor to Achilles, sacker of cities.

The day will come when he calls me his dear grey-eyes again.

But you — harness the single-hoofed horses for the two of us,

375while I go down into the house of aegis-bearing Zeus

and arm myself in gear for war — so I may see

whether Priam's son, Hector of the flashing helmet,

will be glad when the two of us appear on the causeways of battle —

or whether some Trojan too will glut the dogs and the birds

380with his fat and his flesh, fallen beside the ships of the Achaeans."

So she spoke, and the goddess white-armed Hera did not disobey.

Hera went to and fro harnessing the golden-fronted horses —

Hera, eldest goddess, daughter of great Cronos;

and Athena, daughter of aegis-bearing Zeus,

385let fall her soft robe on her father's floor,

the many-colored robe she herself had made and worked with her hands,

and put on the tunic of Zeus the cloud-gatherer,²³

and armed herself in his gear for tearful war.

Into the flaming chariot she stepped, and gripped the spear —

390heavy, huge, compact — with which she breaks the ranks of men,

of heroes, when she of the mighty father is angered with them.

And Hera swiftly touched the horses with the whip;

and self-moved the gates of heaven groaned open, kept by the Seasons,

to whom great heaven and Olympus are entrusted,

395to roll the thick cloud aside, or set it back.

There, straight through, they held the goaded horses.

But father Zeus, when he saw it from Ida, was terribly angered,

and sent Iris of the golden wings to bear his message:

"Up, go, swift Iris: turn them back; do not let them

400come against me. It will be no fair meeting if we join in war.

For I say this outright, and it will be accomplished:

I will lame their swift horses under the chariot,

hurl the two of them from the car, and smash the chariot;

and not in ten circling years will they be healed

405of the wounds the thunderbolt tears — so grey-eyes may learn

what it is to fight against her own father.

With Hera I am not so indignant, not so angry:

it has always been her way to cross whatever I say."

So he spoke; and storm-footed Iris rose to bear the message,

410and went from the mountains of Ida to high Olympus.

At the very gates of many-folded Olympus

she met them and held them, and told them the word of Zeus:

"Where are you two rushing? What is this madness raging in your hearts?

The son of Cronos forbids you to stand by the Argives.

415For thus the son of Cronos threatens — and he will do it:

to lame your swift horses under the chariot,

hurl the two of you from the car, and smash the chariot;

and not in ten circling years will you be healed

of the wounds the thunderbolt tears — so you may learn,

420grey-eyes, what it is to fight against your own father.

With Hera he is not so indignant, not so angry:

it has always been her way to cross whatever he says.

But you — appalling; you shameless dog — if you truly

dare to lift your gigantic spear against Zeus."²⁴

425So speaking, swift-footed Iris went her way;

and Hera spoke her word to Athena:

"Shame — child of aegis-bearing Zeus: I say no longer

can the two of us make war on Zeus for the sake of mortals.

Of them, let one man perish, and another live,

430as it may fall; and let him, pondering his own purposes,

judge between Trojans and Danaans, as is fitting."²⁵

So speaking she turned the single-hoofed horses back.

The Seasons unyoked their lovely-maned horses for them,

and tethered them at the ambrosial mangers,

435and leaned the chariot against the shining inner wall;

and the goddesses sat down on golden chairs

among the other gods, their dear hearts sorrowing.

And father Zeus drove his strong-wheeled chariot and horses

from Ida to Olympus, and came to the sessions of the gods.

440For him the famed earth-shaker unyoked the horses

and set the car on its stand, and spread a cloth across it;

and wide-seeing Zeus himself sat down on his golden throne,

and great Olympus shook beneath his feet.

Apart from Zeus, and alone, sat Athena and Hera,

445and did not speak to him or question him;

but he understood in his heart, and spoke:

"Why so stricken, Athena and Hera?

Surely you are not worn out with battle where men win glory —

with killing Trojans, against whom you have set your dread hatred!

450Come what may — such is my fury, so untouchable my hands —

all the gods there are on Olympus could not turn me.

As for you two: trembling took your shining limbs

before you ever saw the war, and war's grim works.

For I will say this outright — and it would have been accomplished:

455struck by my thunderbolt, you two would never have come back

on your own chariot to Olympus, where the immortals have their seat."

So he spoke, and they murmured at it, Athena and Hera,

who sat side by side plotting evils for the Trojans.

Athena, to be sure, stayed silent and said nothing,

460sulking at father Zeus, wild anger gripping her;

but Hera's breast could not contain her anger, and she spoke:

"Most dread son of Cronos, what a word you have spoken!

Well do we know your strength is nothing feeble;

but even so we grieve for the Danaan spearmen

465who will fill up an evil doom and perish.

Yes: we will hold back from the war, if you command;

but we will put counsel into the Argives — such as will help them —

so they do not all perish under your anger."

Answering her spoke Zeus the cloud-gatherer:

470"At dawn you will see him — if you have the heart for it,

ox-eyed lady Hera — the overmastering son of Cronos

wrecking still more of the great host of Argive spearmen.

For massive Hector will not stop from the fighting

until the swift-footed son of Peleus rises beside the ships,

475on that day when they fight at the ships' sterns,

in the narrowest, most terrible press, over Patroclus fallen.²⁶

So it is decreed by heaven. And for your anger

I care nothing — not if you go to the nethermost limits

of earth and sea, where Iapetus and Cronos

480sit, and take no joy in the rays of Hyperion the Sun,

nor in any wind, and deep Tartarus is all around them:

not if you reach that place in your wandering do I care

for your sulking — since there is nothing more dog-like than you."²⁷

So he spoke; and white-armed Hera answered him nothing.

485And the bright light of the sun fell into Ocean,

drawing black night across the grain-giving earth.

To the Trojans the light sank unwelcome; but to the Achaeans

dark night came welcome — thrice prayed for — very welcome.

Now glorious Hector made an assembly of the Trojans,

490leading them apart from the ships, by the eddying river,

in a clear space, where ground showed empty of the dead.²⁸

Stepping from their chariots to the earth they listened to the word

that Hector spoke, dear to Zeus. In his hand

he held a spear eleven cubits long; and before him the bronze

495point of the shaft shone, and a ring of gold ran round it.

Leaning on this, he spoke his words to the Trojans:

"Hear from me, Trojans and Dardanians and allies.

Just now I said that I should destroy the ships and all

the Achaeans, and go back again to windy Ilion;

500but darkness came too soon. That, above all, has saved

the Argives now, and the ships at the surf-line of the sea.

So then: for now, let us yield to black night

and make our supper ready. The lovely-maned horses —

loose them from under the cars, and throw fodder beside them;

505and bring oxen from the city, and fat sheep,

quickly; get honey-hearted wine, and bread

from your halls; and gather plenty of wood besides,

so that all night long, till early-born Dawn,

we may burn fires in plenty, and the glare go up to heaven —

510lest even by night the long-haired Achaeans

make a run for home over the broad back of the sea.

Not at their ease, at least! — not unbloodied shall they board:

let many a one of them have a shaft to digest at home,

struck by an arrow or a sharp spear

515as he leaps for his ship — so that others too may shudder

to bring tearful war on the horse-taming Trojans.

And let heralds dear to Zeus announce through the city

that boys in first youth and grey-templed old men

are to post themselves around the town on the god-built towers;

520and the women, every one of them, each in her hall,

to burn a great fire; and let the watch be kept unbroken,

lest a raiding party enter the town while the army is away.

So let it be, great-hearted Trojans, as I say it:

let the word that serves this night stand as spoken,

525and the word for dawn I will speak among the horse-taming Trojans tomorrow.

I hope — with prayer to Zeus and the other gods —

to drive out of here those dogs whom the death-fates carry,²⁹

whom the fates carried to us on their black ships.

So: through the night we will guard ourselves,

530and early, toward dawn, armed in our gear,

we will waken sharp Ares beside the hollow ships.

I will know whether Tydeus' son, strong Diomedes,

will thrust me from the ships back on their wall — or whether I

will break him with the bronze and carry off his bloody spoils.

535Tomorrow he will find out his own worth — whether he can stand

my spear as it comes on. No: among the first, I think,

he will lie speared, and many companions around him,

as the sun climbs tomorrow. Would that I were as surely

deathless and ageless for all my days,

540and honored as Athena and Apollo are honored,

as surely as this day now brings evil to the Argives!"³⁰

So Hector spoke; and the Trojans roared applause.

They loosed their sweating horses from under the yoke

and tethered them with straps, each by his own chariot;

545and they brought oxen from the city, and fat sheep,

quickly; got honey-hearted wine, and bread

from their halls; and gathered plenty of wood besides;

and they offered to the immortals perfect hecatombs.

The winds carried the savor from the plain into the sky —

550sweet savor; but the blessed gods took no share of it;

they would not: for holy Ilion was hated in their hearts,³¹

and Priam, and the people of Priam of the good ash spear.

But they, high in their hopes, on the causeways of battle

sat all night long, and their fires burned in multitudes.

555As when in the sky the stars around the shining moon

appear in all their glory, when the air falls windless,

and all the lookout-peaks show clear, and the jutting headlands,

and the glens; and from heaven the measureless air breaks open,

and every star is seen; and the shepherd's heart is glad:³²

560so many, between the ships and the streams of Xanthus,

shone the fires the Trojans burned before Ilion.

A thousand fires burned in the plain, and beside each one

sat fifty men in the glare of the blazing fire.

And the horses, champing white barley and spelt,

565stood beside the chariots, and waited for fair-throned Dawn.

Notes

1 line 1 — "Dawn in her saffron robe" (κροκόπεπλος) — a new dawn-formula for the register, distinct from "early-born rosy-fingered Dawn" (1.477); the book will close with a third, "fair-throned Dawn" (565). ↩

2 lines 13–16 — Tartarus mapped: iron gates, bronze threshold, "as far beneath Hades as heaven is above the earth" — the cosmos as three equal stories, with the threat calibrated to the architecture. ↩

3 lines 18–27 — The golden cord: all gods and goddesses on one end, Zeus on the other — and he would reel in "the earth and the sea with you," and hang the whole from a horn of Olympus. Zenodotus athetized 25-26 and Aristarchus condemned the sequel (apparatus, Lines 25-26, 28-34). Later antiquity allegorized the cord endlessly (the sun, the chain of being); in context it is a weight-boast, and the whole book is its demonstration. ↩

4 lines 38–40 — Zeus smiles: "I do not speak with a set purpose; toward you I mean to be gentle." Aristarchus athetized (= 22.183-184, where the lines recur). The wink complicates the ban — how seriously Zeus means his own decree is exactly what Books 8-15 keep testing. ↩

5 lines 47–48 — Gargaron, Ida's peak, "where his precinct is, and his smoking altar" — Zeus takes his seat above the battle at one of his own cult-sites: spectator's box and shrine in one. ↩

6 lines 69–74 — The golden scales: two "fates of death" weighed, and the Achaeans' day of doom sinks. Aristarchus athetized 73-74 (apparatus). Zeus weighs but does not choose — the gesture that poses, without solving, the poem's deepest question about Zeus and fate; it returns, for two men instead of two armies, at 22.209-213. ↩

7 lines 90–98 — Odysseus, called by name to stand for old Nestor, "did not hear" (οὐδʼ ἐσάκουσε) — or did not heed? The Greek permits both, and ancient readers already argued; the poem moves on without comment, and Diomedes goes back alone. First Iliad occurrence of the Odyssey's great epithet "much-enduring brilliant Odysseus" — in the poem's least flattering moment for him. ↩

8 lines 105–108 — Diomedes' offer repeats his own words about the horses of Tros (5.221-223, verbatim in Greek and in this translation) — the captured team already a talking point. (Echo note.) ↩

9 lines 139–144 — Nestor's counsel of retreat: "No man can fend off the purpose of Zeus." The old man articulates the book's rule — divine favor is temporal ("today... later") — and Diomedes' agonized compliance (146-150 reuse the formulas of 1.286 and 4.182) marks the limit of even the best mortal's aristeia. ↩

10 lines 161–166 — Hector's taunt — "you were a woman after all. Away with you, painted doll!" (κακὴ γλήνη, a glass-eyed puppet or doll). Aristophanes and Aristarchus athetized 164-166, and Zenodotus's text read "I will deal you your death" (πότμον ἐφήσω) for "deal you your doom" (δαίμονα δώσω) at 166 — the entry for this book in disputed_lines.md (#4). Kept: the gendered insult answers 163's "you were a woman," and Diomedes' three-fold hesitation at 167-169 shows it landed. ↩

11 lines 169–171 — "Three times he pondered... and three times Zeus thundered" — the three-then-fourth pattern (5.436-438) with the fourth beat removed: against Zeus there is no fourth try, only the sign obeyed. ↩

12 line 185 — Hector names four horses — Xanthus, Podargus, Aethon, Lampus — but a Homeric chariot is drawn by two, and Aristarchus athetized the line as un-Homeric (apparatus). This Xanthus is not Achilles' immortal horse (19.400) nor the river; the poem's names circulate. ↩

13 lines 186–190 — Andromache fed the horses "before me" — wheat, and wine mixed in — the domestic tenderness of Book 6 recruited into Hector's war-speech (Aristarchus athetized 189). The detail is the marriage in one image; that it surfaces as an argument to horses is Hector all over. ↩

14 lines 191–195 — The fabulous targets: Nestor's shield of solid gold "whose fame now reaches heaven," Diomedes' corslet forged by Hephaestus — neither is mentioned anywhere else in the poem. Rumor-armor, conjured by desire at the moment of imagined victory. ↩

15 line 203 — Helice and Aegae — Poseidon's great cult-seats on the Achaean gulf; Hera's argument is a priest's ledger: they pay you; act accordingly. ↩

16 lines 220–226 — The camp's geography, stated plainly: Odysseus's ship at the midpoint, where a shout reaches both ends; Ajax and Achilles holding the exposed extremities, "trusting their courage and the strength of their hands." The arrangement (repeated at 11.5-9) is the war's org-chart in ship-positions — and explains why Hector's assault will fall where it falls. ↩

17 lines 228–235 — "the boasts you made on Lemnos" — the wine-stop of the outbound voyage (the same Lemnos whose wine-fleet supplied the camp at 7.467-475): each man good for a hundred Trojans, two hundred. Agamemnon's rebuke opens with the same "Shame, Argives!" line as Hera's at 5.787 — the army's leaders now sound like its goddess. ↩

18 lines 247–252 — The eagle drops the fawn beside the altar of "Zeus of All Voices" (Πανομφαῖος — source of every omen): a sign delivered to the address of signs. Zeus grants the prayer's minimum — the host will not perish — while the day's verdict stands. ↩

19 lines 266–334 — Teucer's aristeia: shooting from under Ajax's shield and slipping back "like a child to his mother" — the bastard brother (Agamemnon says the word, 284, in praise) whose skill is framed by dependency; his reward-list runs tripod, horses, "or a woman"; and his day ends with Hector's stone to the collarbone — "the deadliest spot" (326-327, the same anatomical formula as the horse's crown at 83-84). ↩

20 lines 302–308 — Gorgythion: the son of a mother "beautiful as the goddesses," and the poppy heavy with seed and spring rain — the poem's most famous image of a death, a garden conscripted to carry a battlefield. Virgil took it for Euryalus (Aeneid 9.435-437). The vignette-technique of 4.473-489 perfected in three lines. ↩

21 lines 348–349 — Hector wheeling "with the eyes of the Gorgon, or of Ares bane of mortals" — the Gorgon-face from Athena's own aegis (5.741) lent to the poem's most human warrior at his most daemonic. The book's Hector is glory running ahead of its limit. ↩

22 lines 362–369 — Athena's grievance: she was Zeus's instrument for saving Heracles through Eurystheus's labors — including the descent "to bring out of Erebus the hound of hateful Hades": Cerberus, present but unnamed, as at Odyssey 11.623. Her wish that he had drowned in Styx is savage even by Olympian standards (Zenodotus omitted, Aristarchus athetized 371-372, the Thetis-supplication reprise). ↩

23 lines 384–391 — Athena's arming repeats 5.733-747 in abridged form — the robe she made herself falling on her father's floor — and Zenodotus/Aristophanes/Aristarchus objected here too (apparatus, Line 385-387). The English repeats the Book 5 rendering verbatim, per the repetition policy. ↩

24 lines 397–424 — The Iris relay: Zeus's threat — lamed horses, smashed chariot, thunderbolt wounds that "not in ten circling years" will heal — delivered word for word, with the messenger's licensed shift of person... and then one line of Iris's own: "you shameless dog" (423, κύον ἀδεές). Aristarchus athetized 420-424; but the herald who adds venom the principal never spoke is a precise, humanized touch. Dogs are this book's insult-currency (299, 423, 483, 527). ↩

25 lines 427–431 — Hera's retreat: "let one man perish, and another live, as it may fall." The coldest couplet in the poem's divine politics — the goddess of the Achaean cause, rebuffed once, reverting to actuarial indifference. It is the exact opposite of the poem's own attention, which never lets a death be "as it may fall." ↩

26 lines 470–477 — The Patroclus prophecy: Hector will not stop "until the swift-footed son of Peleus rises beside the ships, on that day when they fight at the ships' sterns... over Patroclus fallen. So it is decreed" (θέσφατον). The poem's plot through Book 18, announced by Zeus as settled fact — the first time Patroclus's death is spoken. Suspense in Homer is never whether, only how and at what cost. ↩

27 lines 478–483 — "where Iapetus and Cronos sit" — the imprisoned Titans, sunless and windless in deep Tartarus (cf. 5.898, Zeus's threat to Ares; and 14.279). Zeus's rhetoric to his wife reaches for the family's oldest violence — and ends on "nothing more dog-like than you." ↩

28 lines 489–491 — The Trojan assembly "in a clear space, where ground showed empty of the dead" — the plain is now so strewn that open ground needs remarking. Hector's eleven-cubit spear repeats 6.318-320 verbatim (English likewise): the domestic Hector of Book 6 and the field-marshal of Book 8 carry the same spear. ↩

29 lines 526–528 — "those dogs whom the death-fates carry, whom the fates carried here on their black ships" — κῆρες as both escort and doom: the Achaeans came shipped by their own deaths. Hector's grimmest wordplay. ↩

30 lines 538–541 — "Would that I were as surely deathless and ageless for all my days... as surely as this day brings evil to the Argives": the adynaton-wish at the peak of Hector's confidence. Zenodotus omitted 535-537 and Aristarchus flagged 538-541 with critical points (apparatus) — ancient discomfort at Hector wishing himself Athena's and Apollo's equal. Kept: the wish measures exactly how far Zeus's one day of favor has carried him; its cadence returns, desperate, at 22.304-305. ↩

31 lines 548–552 — The Trojans sacrifice perfect hecatombs — "but the blessed gods took no share of it; they would not: for holy Ilion was hated in their hearts." Ritual perfectly performed and refused (cf. 6.311): between Athena's turned head and this rejected savor, Troy's fate is already liturgically sealed. ↩

32 lines 555–565 — The watchfires: stars around the moon in windless air, every peak and headland clear, "and the shepherd's heart is glad" — the observer's joy that Zenodotus deleted (apparatus, Line 557-558) and that makes the simile: dread from the Achaean wall is wonder from the hills. A thousand fires, fifty men to each; and the last word of this most martial book belongs to horses champing barley, "waiting for fair-throned Dawn." ↩