no one with any skill in fit and proper speech—
and least of all yourself, a sceptered king.
Full battalions hang on your words, Agamemnon—
look at the countless loyal fighters you command!
Now where’s your sense? You fill me with contempt—
what are you saying? With the forces poised to clash
you tell us to haul our oar-swept vessels out to sea?
Just so one more glory can crown these Trojans—
god help us, they have beaten us already—
and the scales of headlong death can drag us down.
Achaean troops will never hold the line, I tell you,
not while the long ships are being hauled to sea.
They’ll look left and right—where can they run?—
and fling their lust for battle to the winds. Then,
commander of armies, your plan will kill us all!“
At that the king of men Agamemnon backed down:
“A painful charge, Odysseus, straight to the heart.
I am hardly the man to order men, against their will,
to haul the oar-swept vessels out to sea. So now,
whoever can find a better plan, let him speak up,
young soldier or old. I would be pleased to hear him.”
And Diomedes lord of the war cry stepped forward,
“Here is your man. Right here, not far to seek.
If you’ll only hear me out and take my lead,
not glare at me in resentment, each of you,
since I am the youngest-born in all our ranks.
I too have a noble birth to boast—my father,
Tydeus, mounded over now by the earth of Thebes.
Three brave sons were bom of the loins of Portheus:
they made their homes in Pleuron and craggy Calydon,
Agrius first, then Melas, the horseman Oeneus third,
my father’s father, the bravest of them all.
There Oeneus stayed, on his own native soil,
but father wandered far, driven to live in Argos ...
by the will of Zeus, I suppose, and other deathless gods.
He married one of Adrastus’ daughters, settled down
in a fine wealthy house, with plenty of grainland
ringed with row on row of blooming orchards
and pastures full of sheep, his own herds.
And he excelled all Argives with his spear—
you must have heard the story, know it’s true.
So you cannot challenge my birth as low, cowardly,
or spurn the advice I give, if the plan is really sound.
I say go back to the fighting, wounded as we are—
we must, we have no choice. But once at the front,
hold off from the spear-play, out of range ourselves
since who of us wants to double wounds on wounds?
But we can spur the rest of them into battle,
all who had nursed some private grudge before,
kept to the rear and shunned the grueling forays.”
The others listened closely and fell in line,
moving out, and marshal Agamemnon led them on.
But the famous god of earthquakes was not blind.
No, Poseidon kept his watch and down he came
to the file of kings like an old veteran now,
he tugged at the right hand of Atreus’ son
and sent his message flying: “Agamemnon—
now, by heaven, Achilles’ murderous spirit
must be leaping in his chest, filled with joy
to behold his comrades slain and routed in their blood.
That man has got no heart in him, not a pulsebeat.
So let him die, outright—let a god wipe him out!
But with you the blessed gods are not enraged,
not through and through, Agamemnon ...
A day will come when the Trojan lords and captains
send an immense dust storm swirling down the plain—
with your own eyes you’ll see them break for Troy,
leaving your ships and shelters free and clear!”
A shattering cry, and he surged across the plain,
thundering loud as nine, ten thousand combat soldiers
shriek with Ares’ fury when massive armies clash—so huge
that voice the god of the earthquake let loose from his lungs,
planting enormous martial power in each Achaean’s heart
to urge the battle on, to fight and never flinch.
Now Hera poised on her golden throne looked down,
stationed high at her post aloft Olympus’ peak.
At once she saw the sea lord blustering strong
in the war where men win glory, her own brother
and husband’s brother too, and her heart raced with joy.
But then she saw great Zeus at rest on the ridge
and the craggy heights of Ida gushing cold springs
and her heart filled with loathing. What could she do?—
Queen Hera wondered, her eyes glowing wide ...
how could she outmaneuver Zeus the mastermind,
this Zeus with his battle-shield of storm and thunder?
At last one strategy struck her mind as best:
she would dress in all her glory and go to Ida—
perhaps the old desire would overwhelm the king
to lie by her naked body and make immortal love
and she might drift an oblivious, soft warm sleep
across his eyes and numb that seething brain.
So off she went to her room,
the chamber her loving son Hephaestus built her,
hanging the doors from doorposts snug and tight,
locked with a secret bolt no other god could draw.
She slipped in, closing the polished doors behind her.
The ambrosia first. Hera cleansed her enticing body
of any blemish, then she applied a deep olive rub,
the breath-taking, redolent oil she kept beside her ...
one stir of the scent in the bronze-floored halls of Zeus
and a perfumed cloud would drift from heaven down to earth.
Kneading her skin with this to a soft glow and combing her hair,
she twisted her braids with expert hands, and sleek, luxurious,
shining down from her deathless head they fell, cascading.
Then round her shoulders she swirled the wondrous robes
that Athena wove her, brushed out to a high gloss
and worked into the weft an elegant rose brocade.
She pinned them across her breasts with a golden brooch
then sashed her waist with a waistband
floating a hundred tassels, and into her earlobes,
neatly pierced, she quickly looped her earrings,
ripe mulberry-clusters dangling in triple drops
and the silver glints they cast could catch the heart.
Then back over her brow she draped her headdress,
fine fresh veils for Hera the queen of gods,
their pale, glimmering sheen like a rising sun,
and under her smooth feet she fastened supple sandals.
Now, dazzling in all her rich regalia, head to foot,
out of her rooms she strode and beckoned Aphrodite
away from the other gods and whispered, “Dear child,
would you do me a favor ... whatever I might ask?
Or would you refuse me, always fuming against me
because I defend the Argives, you the Trojans?”
Aphrodite the daughter of Zeus replied at once,
“Hera, queen of the skies, daughter of mighty Cronus,
tell me what’s on your mind. I am eager to do it—
whatever I can do ... whatever can be done.”
Quick with treachery noble Hera answered,
“Give me Love, give me Longing now, the powers
you use
to overwhelm all gods and mortal men!
I am off to the ends of the fruitful, teeming earth
to visit Ocean, fountainhead of the gods, and Mother Tethys
who nourished me in their halls and reared me well.
They received me from Rhea, when thundering Zeus
drove Cronus under the earth and the barren salt sea.
I go to visit them and dissolve their endless feud—
how long they have held back from each other now,
from making love, since anger struck their hearts.
But if words of mine could lure them back to love,
back to bed, to lock in each other’s arms once more ...
they would call me their honored, loving friend forever.”
Aphrodite, smiling her everlasting smile, replied,
“Impossible—worse, it’s wrong to deny your warm request,
since you are the one who lies in the arms of mighty Zeus.”
With that she loosed from her breasts the breastband,
pierced and alluring, with every kind of enchantment
woven through it ... There is the heat of Love,
the pulsing rush of Longing, the lover’s whisper,
irresistible—magic to make the sanest man go mad.
And thrusting it into Hera’s outstretched hands
she breathed her name in a throbbing, rising voice:
“Here now, take this band, put it between your breasts—
ravishing openwork, and the world lies in its weaving!
You won’t return, I know, your mission unfulfilled,
whatever your eager heart desires to do.”
Hera broke into smiles now, her eyes wide—
with a smile she tucked the band between her breasts.
And Aphrodite the daughter of Zeus went home
but Hera sped in a flash from Mount Olympus’ peak
and crossing Pieria’s coast and lovely Emathia
rushed on, over the Thracian riders’ snowy ridges,
sweeping the highest summits, feet never touching the earth
and east of Athos skimmed the billowing, foaming sea
and touched down on Lemnos, imperial Thoas’ city.
There she fell in with Sleep, twin brother of Death,
clung to his hand and urged him, called his name:
“Sleep, master of all gods and all mortal men,
if you ever listened to me in the old days,
do what I ask you now—
and you shall have my everlasting thanks.
Put Zeus to sleep for me! Seal his shining eyes
as soon as I’ve gone to bed with him, locked in love,
and I will give you gifts—a magnificent throne,
never tarnished, always glittering, solid gold.
My own son Hephaestus, the burly crippled Smith
will forge it finely and under it slide a stool
where you can prop your glistening feet and rest,
stretching out at feasts.”
And the voice of Sleep
the soft and soothing drifted back ... “Hera, Hera,
queen of the gods and daughter of mighty Cronus—
any other immortal god who lives forever,
believe me, I would put to sleep in a wink,
even the rolling tides of the great Ocean River,
the fountainhead that brought them all to birth.
But Zeus? Not I—I would not get too close
to the son of Cronus, much less put him under,
not unless the Father gave the command himself.
A commission of yours taught me my lesson once,
the day that Heracles, the insolent son of Zeus
sailed out from Troy, having razed her to the ground.
And then I put the brain of thundering Zeus to sleep,
pouring myself in a soft, soothing slumber round him.
But you and your anger! You were bent on trouble,
whipping a howling killer-squall across the sea,
bearing Heracles off to the crowded town of Cos,
far from all his friends. But Zeus woke up,
furious, flinging immortal gods about his house
to hunt for me—I was the culprit, the worst of all—
and out of the skies he would have sunk me in the sea,
wiped me from sight, if the Night had failed to save me,
old Night that can overpower all gods and mortal men.
I reached her in flight and Father called it quits
despite his towering anger. True, Zeus shrank
from doing a thing to outrage rushing Night.
But now you are back, Hera—
you ask me to do the impossible once again.”
Eyes widening, noble Hera coaxed him further:
“So troubled, Sleep, why torture yourself with that?
You think that thundering Zeus, shielding the men of Troy,
will rage as he raged for great Heracles, his own son?
Come now, I will give you one of the younger Graces—
Wed her at once and she’ll be called your wife.”
“On with it!”—Sleep cried, thrilled by the offer—
“Swear to me by the incorruptible tides of Styx,
one hand grasping the earth that feeds mankind,
the other the bright sea, that all may be our witness,
all gods under earth that gather round King Cronus!
Swear you will give me one of the younger Graces,
Pasithea, she’s the one—
all my days I’ve tossed and turned for her!”
The white-armed goddess Hera complied at once.
She swore as he urged and sounded out the names
of all the gods in the Tartarean Pit we call the Titans.
As soon as she’d sworn and sealed her binding oath,
away they launched from Imbros’ walls and Lemnos,
swathed in a thick mist and nimbly made their way
until they reached Mount Ida with all her springs,
the mother of wild beasts, and making Lectos headland,
left the sea for the first time and swept over dry land
as the treetops swayed and shook beneath their feet.
There Sleep came to a halt—
before the eyes of the Father could detect him—
and climbed up softly into a towering pine tree.
The tallest trunk there was on the heights of Ida,
it pierced the low-hung mist and shot up through the sky.
There he nestled, hidden deep in the needling boughs,
for all the world like the bird with a shrill cry,
the mountain bird the immortals call Bronze Throat
and mortals call the Nighthawk.
But not Hera—
quick on her feet she scaled Gargaron peak,
the highest crest of Ida. And Zeus spotted her now,
Zeus who gathers the breasting clouds. And at one glance
the lust came swirling over him, making his heart race,
fast as the first time—all unknown to their parents—
The Iliad Page 52
