Iliad by Homer - Join iZDOT

Homer’s Iliad
upon Hades and on awful Proserpine; she went down upon her
knees and her bosom was wet with tears as she prayed that they
would kill her son- and Erinys that walks in darkness and knows
no ruth heard her from Erebus.
“Then was heard the din of battle about the gates of Calydon, and
the dull thump of the battering against their walls. Thereon the
elders of the Aetolians besought Meleager; they sent the chiefest of
their priests, and begged him to come out and help them,
promising him a great reward. They bade him choose fifty ploughgates,
the most fertile in the plain of Calydon, the one-half vineyard
and the other open plough-land. The old warrior Oeneus implored
him, standing at the threshold of his room and beating the doors in
supplication. His sisters and his mother herself besought him sore,
but he the more refused them; those of his comrades who were
nearest and dearest to him also prayed him, but they could not
move him till the foe was battering at the very doors of his
chamber, and the Curetes had scaled the walls and were setting fire
to the city. Then at last his sorrowing wife detailed the horrors that
befall those whose city is taken; she reminded him how the men
are slain, and the city is given over to the flames, while the women
and children are carried into captivity; when he heard all this, his
heart was touched, and he donned his armour to go forth. Thus of
his own inward motion he saved the city of the Aetolians; but they
now gave him nothing of those rich rewards that they had offered
earlier, and though he saved the city he took nothing by it. Be not
then, my son, thus minded; let not heaven lure you into any such
course. When the ships are burning it will be a harder matter to
save them. Take the gifts, and go, for the Achaeans will then honour
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