Iliad by Homer - Join iZDOT

Homer’s Iliad
the fire. With many tears they singled out the whitened bones of
their loved comrade and laid them within a golden urn in two
layers of fat: they then covered the urn with a linen cloth and took
it inside the tent. They marked off the circle where the barrow
should be, made a foundation for it about the pyre, and forthwith
heaped up the earth. When they had thus raised a mound they
were going away, but Achilles stayed the people and made them sit
in assembly. He brought prizes from the ships-cauldrons, tripods,
horses and mules, noble oxen, women with fair girdles, and swart
iron.
The first prize he offered was for the chariot races- a woman skilled
in all useful arts, and a three-legged cauldron that had ears for
handles, and would hold twenty-two measures. This was for the
man who came in first. For the second there was a six-year old
mare, unbroken, and in foal to a he-ass; the third was to have a
goodly cauldron that had never yet been on the fire; it was still
bright as when it left the maker, and would hold four measures.
The fourth prize was two talents of gold, and the fifth a twohandled
urn as yet unsoiled by smoke. Then he stood up and
spoke among the Argives saying-
“Son of Atreus, and all other Achaeans, these are the prizes that lie
waiting the winners of the chariot races. At any other time I should
carry off the first prize and take it to my own tent; you know how
far my steeds excel all others- for they are immortal; Neptune gave
them to my father Peleus, who in his turn gave them to myself; but
I shall hold aloof, I and my steeds that have lost their brave and
kind driver, who many a time has washed them in clear water and
anointed their manes with oil. See how they stand weeping here,
451