Iliad

When, therefore, the morning of the twelfth day had now come, Phoebus Apollo spoke among the immortals saying, "You gods ought to be ashamed of yourselves; you are cruel and hard-hearted. Did not Hektor burn you thigh-bones of heifers and of unblemished goats? And now dare you not rescue even his dead body, for his wife to look upon, with his mother and child, his father Priam, and his people, who would forthwith commit him to the flames, and give him his due funeral rites? So, then, you would all be on the side of mad Achilles, who knows neither right nor ruth? He is like some savage lion that in the pride of his great strength [ biê ] and spirit [ thumos ] springs upon men's flocks and gorges on them. Even so has Achilles flung aside all pity, and all that decency [ aidôs ] which at once so greatly banes yet greatly boons him that will heed it. man may lose one far dearer than Achilles has lost- a son, it may be, or a brother born from his own mother's womb; yet when he has mourned him and wept over him he will let him bide, for it takes much sorrow to kill a man; whereas Achilles, now that he has slain noble Hektor, drags him behind his chariot round the tomb [ sêma ] of his comrade. It were better of him, and for him, that he should not do so, for brave though he be we gods may take it ill that he should vent his fury upon dead clay."

IliadBook 24, Line 31Samuel ButlerEnglishVerse permalinkRead in Book 24

HomerProseID iliad-iliad-butler-en-prose-24-31