Verse

Iliad

Book 23, Line 161 by Samuel Butler (English)

When King Agamemnon heard this he dismissed the people to their ships, but those who were about the dead heaped up wood and built a pyre a hundred feet this way and that; then they laid the dead all sorrowfully upon the top of it. They flayed and dressed many fat sheep and oxen before the pyre, and Achilles took fat from all of them and wrapped the body therein from head to foot, heaping the flayed carcasses all round it. Against the bier he leaned two-handled jars of honey and unguents; four proud horses did he then cast upon the pyre, groaning the while he did so. The dead hero had had house-dogs; two of them did Achilles slay and threw upon the pyre; he also put twelve brave sons of noble Trojans to the sword and laid them with the rest, for he was full of bitterness and fury.

IliadBook 23, Line 161Samuel ButlerEnglishVerse permalinkRead in Book 23

HomerProseID iliad-iliad-butler-en-prose-23-161

Reflect on this line

Samuel Butler's public-domain English prose Iliad via Perseus canonical TEI; prose segments are assigned to their source line span.