Iliad by Homer - Join iZDOT

Homer’s Iliad
myself that he is Machaon shepherd of his people. I must go back
and tell Achilles. You, sir, know what a terrible man he is, and how
ready to blame even where no blame should lie.”
And Nestor answered, “Why should Achilles care to know how
many of the Achaeans may be wounded? He recks not of the
dismay that reigns in our host; our most valiant chieftains lie
disabled, brave Diomed son of Tydeus is wounded; so are Ulysses
and Agamemnon; Eurypylus has been hit with an arrow in the
thigh, and I have just been bringing this man from the field- he too
wounded- with an arrow; nevertheless Achilles, so valiant though
he be, cares not and knows no ruth. Will he wait till the ships, do
what we may, are in a blaze, and we perish one upon the other? As
for me, I have no strength nor stay in me any longer; would that I
Were still young and strong as in the days when there was a fight
between us and the men of Elis about some cattle-raiding. I then
killed Itymoneus the valiant son of Hypeirochus a dweller in Elis,
as I was driving in the spoil; he was hit by a dart thrown my hand
while fighting in the front rank in defence of his cows, so he fell
and the country people around him were in great fear. We drove
off a vast quantity of booty from the plain, fifty herds of cattle and
as many flocks of sheep; fifty droves also of pigs, and as many
wide-spreading flocks of goats. Of horses moreover we seized a
hundred and fifty, all of them mares, and many had foals running
with them. All these did we drive by night to Pylus the city of
Neleus, taking them within the city; and the heart of Neleus was
glad in that I had taken so much, though it was the first time I had
ever been in the field. At daybreak the heralds went round crying
that all in Elis to whom there was a debt owing should come; and
the leading Pylians assembled to divide the spoils. There were
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