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第9章

a reading of life-第9章

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Inherit onward of their origin;

And cancelled blessings will the current length

Reveal till they know need of shaping strength。

'Tis not in men to recognize the need

Before they clash in hosts; in hosts they bleed。

Then may sharp suffering their nature grind;

Of rabble passions grow the chieftain Mind。

Yet mark where still broad Nile boasts thousands fed;

For tens up the safe mountains at his head。

Few would be fed; not far his course prolong;

Save for the troublous blood which makes him strong。



… That rings of truth!  More do your people thrive;

Your Many are more merrily alive

Than erewhile when I gloried in the page

Of radiant singer and anointed sage。

Greece was my lamp:  burnt out for lack of oil;

Rome; Python Rome; prey of its robber spoil!

All structures built upon a narrow space

Must fall; from having not your hosts for base。

O thrice must one be you; to see them shift

Along their desert flats; here dash; there drift;

With faith; that of privations and spilt blood;

Comes Reason armed to clear or bank the flood!

And thrice must one be you; to wait release

From duress in the swamp of their increase。

At which oppressive scene; beyond arrest;

A darkness not with stars of heaven dressed;

Philosophers behold; desponding view。

Your Many nourished; starved my brilliant few;

Then flinging heels; as charioteers the reins;

Dive down the fumy AEtna of their brains。

Belated vessels on a rising sea;

They seem:  they pass!



… But not Philosophy!



… Ay; be we faithful to ourselves:  despise

Nought but the coward in us!  That way lies

The wisdom making passage through our slough。

Am I not heard; my head to Earth shall bow;

Like her; shall wait to see; and seeing wait。

Philosophy is Life's one match for Fate。

That photosphere of our high fountain One;

Our spirit's Lord and Reason's fostering sun;

Philosophy; shall light us in the shade;

Warm in the frost; make Good our aim and aid。

Companioned by the sweetest; ay renewed;

Unconquerable; whose aim for aid is Good!

Advantage to the Many:  that we name

God's voice; have there the surety in our aim。

This thought unto my sister do I owe;

And irony and satire off me throw。

They crack a childish whip; drive puny herds;

Where numbers crave their sustenance in words。

Now let the perils thicken:  clearer seen;

Your Chieftain Mind mounts over them serene。

Who never yet of scattered lamps was born

To speed a world; a marching world to warn;

But sunward from the vivid Many springs;

Counts conquest but a step; and through disaster sings。









Fragments of the Iliad in English Hexameter Verse









Poem: The Invective Of Achilles







'Iliad; B。 I。 V。 149'



〃Heigh me! brazen of front; thou glutton for plunder; how can one;

Servant here to thy mandates; heed thee among our Achaians;

Either the mission hie on or stoutly do fight with the foemen?

I; not hither I fared on account of the spear…armed Trojans;

Pledged to the combat; they unto me have in nowise a harm done;

Never have they; of a truth; come lifting my horses or oxen;

Never in deep…soiled Phthia; the nurser of heroes; my harvests

Ravaged; they; for between us is numbered full many a darksome

Mountain; ay; therewith too the stretch of the windy sea…waters。

O hugely shameless! thee did we follow to hearten thee; justice

Pluck from the Dardans for him; Menelaos; thee too; thou dog…eyed!

Whereof little thy thought is; nought whatever thou reckest。

Worse; it is thou whose threat 'tis to ravish my prize from me;

portion

Won with much labour; the which my gift from the sons of Achaia。

Never; in sooth; have I known my prize equal thine when Achaians

Gave some flourishing populous Trojan town up to pillage。

Nay; sure; mine were the hands did most in the storm of the combat;

Yet when came peradventure share of the booty amongst us;

Bigger to thee went the prize; while I some small blessed thing

bore

Off to the ships; my share of reward for my toil in the bloodshed!

So now go I to Phthia; for better by much it beseems me

Homeward go with my beaked ships now; and I hold not in prospect;

I being outraged; thou mayst gather here plunder and wealth…store。〃







Poem: The Invective of Achilles … V。 225。







〃Bibber besotted; with scowl of a cur; having heart of a deer;

thou!

Never to join to thy warriors armed for the press of the conflict;

Never for ambush forth with the princeliest sons of Achaia

Dared thy soul; for to thee that thing would have looked as a

death…stroke。

Sooth; more easy it seems; down the lengthened array of Achaians;

Snatch at the prize of the one whose voice has been lifted against

thee。

Ravening king of the folk; for that thou hast thy rule over

abjects;

Else; son of Atreus; now were this outrage on me thy last one。

Nay; but I tell thee; and I do swear a big oath on it likewise:

Yea; by the sceptre here; and it surely bears branches and leaf…

buds

Never again; since first it was lopped from its trunk on the

mountains;

No more sprouting; for round it all clean has the sharp metal

clipped off

Leaves and the bark; ay; verify now do the sons of Achaia;

Guardian hands of the counsels of Zeus; pronouncing the judgement;

Hold it aloft; so now unto thee shall the oath have its portent;

Loud will the cry for Achilles burst from the sons of Achaia

Throughout the army; and thou chafe powerless; though in an

anguish;

How to give succour when vast crops down under man…slaying Hector

Tumble expiring; and thou deep in thee shalt tear at thy heart…

strings;

Rage…wrung; thou; that in nought thou didst honour the flower of

Achaians。〃







Poem: Marshalling Of The Achaians







'Iliad; B。 II V。 455'



Like as a terrible fire feeds fast on a forest enormous;

Up on a mountain height; and the blaze of it radiates round far;

So on the bright blest arms of the host in their march did the

splendour

Gleam wide round through the circle of air right up to the sky…

vault。

They; now; as when swarm thick in the air multitudinous winged

flocks;

Be it of geese or of cranes or the long…necked troops of the wild…

swans;

Off that Asian mead; by the flow of the waters of Kaistros;

Hither and yon fly they; and rejoicing in pride of their pinions;

Clamour; shaped to their ranks; and the mead all about them

resoundeth;

So those numerous tribes from their ships and their shelterings

poured forth

On that plain of Scamander; and horrible rumbled beneath them

Earth to the quick…paced feet of the men and the tramp of the

horse…hooves。

Stopped they then on the fair…flower'd field of Scamander; their

thousands

Many as leaves and the blossoms born of the flowerful season。

Even as countless hot…pressed flies in their multitudes traverse;

Clouds of them; under some herdsman's wonning; where then are the

milk…pails

Also; full of their milk; in the bountiful season of spring…time;

Even so thickly the long…haired sons of Achaia the plain held;

Prompt for the dash at the Trojan host; with the passion to crush

them。

Those; likewise; as the goatherds; eyeing their vast flocks of

goats; know

Easily one from the other when all get mixed o'er the pasture;

So did the chieftains rank them here there in their places for

onslaught;

Hard on the push of the fray; and among them King Agamemnon;

He; for his eyes and his head; as when Zeus glows glad in his

thunder;

He with the girdle of Ares; he with the breast of Poseidon。







Poem: Agamemnon In The Fight







'Iliad; B。 XI。 V。 148'



These; then; he left; and away where ranks were now clashing the

thickest;

Onward rushed; and with him rushed all of the bright…greaved

Achaians。

Foot then footmen slew; that were flying from direful compulsion;

Horse at the horsemen (up from off under them mounted the dust…

cloud;

Up off the plain; raised up cloud…thick by the thundering horse…

ho

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