Iliad by Homer - Join iZDOT

Homer’s Iliad
say, ‘Go home, for you will not take Ilius.’ Jove has held his hand
over her to protect her, and her people have taken heart. Go,
therefore, as in duty bound, and tell the princes of the Achaeans the
message that I have sent them; tell them to find some other plan for
the saving of their ships and people, for so long as my displeasure
lasts the one that they have now hit upon may not be. As for
Phoenix, let him sleep here that he may sail with me in the morning
if he so will. But I will not take him by force.”
They all held their peace, dismayed at the sternness with which he
had denied them, till presently the old knight Phoenix in his great
fear for the ships of the Achaeans, burst into tears and said, “Noble
Achilles, if you are now minded to return, and in the fierceness of
your anger will do nothing to save the ships from burning, how,
my son, can I remain here without you? Your father Peleus bade
me go with you when he sent you as a mere lad from Phthia to
Agamemnon. You knew nothing neither of war nor of the arts
whereby men make their mark in council, and he sent me with you
to train you in all excellence of speech and action. Therefore, my
son, I will not stay here without you- no, not though heaven itself
vouchsafe to strip my years from off me, and make me young as I
was when I first left Hellas the land of fair women. I was then flying
the anger of father Amyntor, son of Ormenus, who was furious with
me in the matter of his concubine, of whom he was enamoured to
the wronging of his wife my mother. My mother, therefore, prayed
me without ceasing to lie with the woman myself, that so she hate
my father, and in the course of time I yielded. But my father soon
came to know, and cursed me bitterly, calling the dread Erinyes to
witness. He prayed that no son of mine might ever sit upon kneesand
the gods, Jove of the world below and awful Proserpine,
171