{"id":3661,"date":"2013-07-13T01:50:17","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:50:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=3661"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:50:17","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:50:17","slug":"07-the-book-of-the-chieftains-vol-ilion-an-epic-in-quantitative-hexameters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/02-other-editions\/ilion-an-epic-in-quantitative-hexameters\/07-the-book-of-the-chieftains-vol-ilion-an-epic-in-quantitative-hexameters","title":{"rendered":"-07_The Book Of The Chieftains.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n

\nBook Six<\/font><\/i> <\/font><\/b>\n<\/p>\n

\nTHE BOOK OF THE CHIEFTAINS
\n<\/font><\/b>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tBUT from their midst up rearing a brow that no crown could ennoble, <\/p>\n

Male and kingly of front like a lion conscious of puissance\n\t<\/p>\n

Rose a form august, the monarch great Agamemnon.\n\t<\/p>\n

Wroth he rose yet throwing a rein on the voice of his passion,\n\t<\/p>\n

Governing the beast and the demon within by the god who is mighty.\n\t<\/p>\n

"Happily for thy life and my fame that thou comst with the aegis of heaven\n\t<\/p>\n

Shadowing thy hoary brows, thou herald of pride and of insult.\n\t<\/p>\n

Well is it too for his days who sent thee that other and nobler\n\t<\/p>\n

Heaven made my heart than his who insults and a voice of the immortals1
\n\t<\/sup><\/p>\n

Cries to my soul forbidding its passions. O hardness of virtue\n\t<\/p>\n

Thus to be seized and controlled as in fetters by Zeus and Athene.\n\t<\/p>\n

Free is the peasant to smite in the pastures the mouth that has wronged him,\n\t<\/p>\n

Chained in his soul is Atrides. Bound by their debt to the fathers,\n\t<\/p>\n

Curbed by the god in them painfully move the lives of the noble,\n\t<\/p>\n

Forced to obey the eye that watches within in their bosoms.\n\t<\/p>\n

Ever since Zeus Cronion turned in our will towards the waters,\n\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t1<\/sup> Alternative to lines 4-9 : <\/font> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWroth he rose with a reddened brow as reddens the forehead
\n\t\t\t<\/font>\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWide of the heavens with a glory of wrath on the eve of a* tempest.
\n\t\t\t<\/font>\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t"Well is it, herald, that sacred thou comst with the aegis of heaven
\n\t\t\t<\/font>\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tSheltering thy hoary brows ; for thy age should not shield thee nor
\n\t\t\tpardon, +
\n\t\t\t<\/font>\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tShame to the ancient years and the Argive tongue that can utter
\n\t\t\t<\/font>\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWords like these into Argive ears from the mouth of a Hellene.
\n\t\t\t<\/font>\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWell is it too for the length of his days who sent thee, O envoy,
\n\t\t\t<\/font>\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tVoicing** his pride, the haughty J chief of a barbarous nation,
\n\t\t\t<\/font>\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOne who imagines that sole upon earth he is brave and a fighter.
\n\t\t\t<\/font>\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWell for his days that my strength is restrained by a voice that within me."
\n\t\t\t<\/font>\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n\t\t* some <\/p>\n

\n\t\t Alternative : Well is it, herald, that sacred thou comst and protected of heaven.
\n\t\t<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t                           Bearing this stab to Achaia nor fearest insulting her princes.
\n\t\t<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t                                               
\n\t\t++insolent<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t** Voice of <\/font> <\/i>
\n\t\t<\/font><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-83<\/p>\n

\n

\n

Scourged by the heavens in my dearest, wronged by men and their clamours\n\t<\/p>\n

Griefs untold I have borne in Argos and Aulis and Troas,\n\t<\/p>\n

Yoked to the sacred toil of the Greeks for their children and country,\n\t<\/p>\n

Bound by the gods to a task that is heavy, a load that is bitter.\n\t<\/p>\n

Seeing the faces1<\/sup> of foes in the mask of a friend I was silent.\n\t<\/p>\n

Hateful I hold him who sworn to a cause that is holy and common\n\t<\/p>\n

Broods upon private wrongs or serving his2<\/sup> lonely ambition\n\t<\/p>\n

Studies to reap his gain from the labour and woe of his fellows.\n\t<\/p>\n

Mire is the man who hears not the gods when they cry to his bosom.\n\t<\/p>\n

Grief and wrath I coerced nor carried my heart to its record,\n\t<\/p>\n

All that has hurt its chords and wounded the wings of my spirit.\n\t<\/p>\n

Nobler must kings be than natures of earth on whom Zeus lays no burden.\n\t<\/p>\n

Other is Peleus’ son than the race of his Aeacid fathers,\n\t<\/p>\n

Nor like his sire of the wise-still heart deep-sighted and patient\n\t<\/p>\n

Bearing the awful ruin of the gods, but hastes to his longings ;\n\t<\/p>\n

Dire is his wrath and pursued by the band of his giant ambitions.\n\t<\/p>\n

Measure and virtue forsake him as Ate grows in his bosom.\n\t<\/p>\n

Yet not for tyrant wrong nor to serve as a sword for our passions\n\t<\/p>\n

Zeus created our strength, but that earth might have help from her children.\n\t<\/p>\n

Not of our moulding its gifts to our soul nor were formed by our labour.\n\t<\/p>\n

When did we make them, and where were they forged, in what workshop
\nor furnace ?3<\/sup> <\/p>\n

Found in what aeon of Time, that pride should bewilder the mortal ?\n\t<\/p>\n

Bowed to our will are the folk and our prowess dreadful and godlike ?\n\t<\/p>\n

Shadows are these of the gods which the deep heavens cast on our spirits.\n\t<\/p>\n

Transient we made not ourselves, but at birth from the first we were
\nfashioned\n<\/p>\n

Valiant or fearful and as was our birth by the gods and their thinkings\n\t<\/p>\n

Formed, so already enacted and fixed by their wills are our fortunes.\n\t<\/p>\n

What were the strength of Atrides and what were the craft of Odysseus\n\t<\/p>\n

Save for their triumphing gods ? They would fail and be helpless as infants.\n\t<\/p>\n

Stronger a woman, wiser a child were, favoured by Heaven.\n\t<\/p>\n

Ceased not Sarpedon slain who was son of Zeus and unconquered ?\n\t<\/p>\n

Not to Achilles he fell, but Fate and the gods were his slayers.\n\t<\/p>\n

Kings, to the arrogant shaft that was launched, the unbearable insult\n\t<\/p>\n

Armoured wisdoms oppose, let not Ate seize on your passions.\n\t<\/p>\n

Be not as common souls, O you who are Greece and her fortunes,\n\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t1<\/font><\/sup> eyes <\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t2<\/font><\/sup> Alternative to "serving his" : lured by a<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t 3<\/sup> Alternative to "or furnace" : of being
\n\t\t<\/font><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Page-84<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\n

Nor of your spirits of wrath take counsel but of Athene.\n\t<\/p>\n

Merit the burden laid by Zeus, his demand from your natures\n\t<\/p>\n

Suffer, O hearts of his seed, O souls who are chosen and mighty,\n\t<\/p>\n

All forgetting but Greece and her good ; resolve what is noble.\n\t<\/p>\n

I will not speak nor advise, for ’tis known we are rivals and foemen."\n\t<\/p>\n

Calmed by his words and his will he sat down mighty and kinglike ;\n\t<\/p>\n

But Menelaus arose, the Spartan, the husband of Helen,\n\t<\/p>\n

Atreus’ younger son from a lesser womb, in his brilliance\n\t<\/p>\n

Dwarfed by the other’s port, yet tall was he, gracile and splendid,\n\t<\/p>\n

As if a panther might hunt by a lion’s side in the forest.\n\t<\/p>\n

Smiting his thigh with his firm-clenched hand he spoke mid the Argives:\n\t<\/p>\n

"Woe to me, shameless, born to my country a cause of affliction,\n\t<\/p>\n

Since for my sake all wrongs must be borne and all shames be encountered ;\n\t<\/p>\n

And for my sake you have spun through the years down the grooves of
\ndisaster\n<\/p>\n

Bearing the shocks of the Trojans and ravaged by Zeus and by Hector,\n\t<\/p>\n

Slaughtered by Rhesus and Memnon, Sarpedon and Penthesilea ;\n\t<\/p>\n

Or by the Archer pierced, the hostile dreadful Apollo,\n\t<\/p>\n

Evilly and the days of the Greeks remote from their kindred\u2014\n\t<\/p>\n

Slain on an alien soil by Asian Xanthus and Ida.\n\t<\/p>\n

Doomed to the pyre we have toiled for a woman ungracious who left us\n\t<\/p>\n

Passing serenely my portals to joy in the chambers of Troya.\n\t<\/p>\n

Here let it cease, O my brother ! how much wilt thou bear for this graceless\n\t<\/p>\n

Child of thy sire, cause still of thy griefs and never of blessing ?\n\t<\/p>\n

Easily Zeus afflicts who trouble their hearts for a woman ;\n\t<\/p>\n

But in our ships that sailed close-fraught with this dolorous Ate\n\t<\/p>\n

Worse was the bane they bore which King Peleus begot on white Thetis.\n\t<\/p>\n

Evil ever was sown by the embrace of the gods with a mortal !\n\t<\/p>\n

Alien a portent is born and a breaker of men and their labours,\n\t<\/p>\n

One who afflicts with his light or his force mortality’s weakness\n\t<\/p>\n

Stripping for falsehoods their verities, shaking the walls they erected.\n\t<\/p>\n

Neither without him his fellows can prosper nor will his spirit\n\t<\/p>\n

Fit in the frame of things earthly but shatters their rhythm and order\n\t<\/p>\n

Rending the measures just that the wise have decreed for our growing.\n\t<\/p>\n

So have our mortal
\n\tplanning’s broken in this fateful Achilles <\/p>\n

And with our blood and our anguish Heaven has fostered his greatness.\n\t<\/p>\n

It is enough ; let the dire gods choose between Greece and their offspring.\n\t<\/p>\n

Even as he bids us, aloof let our hosts twixt the ships and the Xanthus\n\t<\/p>\n

Stand from the shock and the cry where Hellene meets with Eoan,\n\t<\/p>\n

\n\tTroy and Pthia locked, Achilles and Penthesilea,<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Page-85<\/p>\n

\n

\n

Nor any more than watchers care who line an arena;\n\t<\/p>\n

Calm like the impartial gods they approve the bravest and swiftest.\n\t<\/p>\n

So let him fight ! The fates shall preserve him he vaunts of or gather,\n\t<\/p>\n

Even as death shall gather us all for memory’s clusters,\n\t<\/p>\n

All in their day who were great or were little, heroes or cowards.\n\t<\/p>\n

So shall he slay or be slain, a boon to mankind and his country.\n\t<\/p>\n

Since if he mow down this flower of bale, this sickle by Hades\n\t<\/p>\n

Whirled if he break\u2014for the high gods ride on the hiss of his spear-shaft,\u2014\n\t<\/p>\n

Ours is the gain who shall break rejoicing through obdurate portals\n\t<\/p>\n

Praising Pallas alone and Hera daughter of Heaven.\n\t<\/p>\n

But if he sink in this last of his fights, as they say it is fated,\u2014\n\t<\/p>\n

Nor do I deem that the man has been born in Asia or Hellas\n\t<\/p>\n

Who in the dreadful field can prevail against Penthesilea,\u2014\n\t<\/p>\n

If to their tents the Myrmidons fleeing cumber the meadows\n\t<\/p>\n

Slain by a girl in her speed and leaving the corpse of their leader,\n\t<\/p>\n

Ours is the gain, we are rid of a shame and a hate and a danger.\n\t<\/p>\n

True is it, Troy shall exultant live on in the shadow of Ida,\n\t<\/p>\n

Yet shall our hearts be light because earth is void of Achilles.\n\t<\/p>\n

And for the rest of the infinite loss, what we hoped, what we suffered,\n\t<\/p>\n

Let it all go, let the salt floods swallow it, fate and oblivion\n\t<\/p>\n

Bury it out in the night; let us sail o’er the waves to our country\n\t<\/p>\n

Leaving Helen in Troy since the gods are the friends of transgressors."\n\t<\/p>\n

So Menelaus in anger and grief miscounselled the Argives.\n\t<\/p>\n

       Great Idomeneus next, the haughty king of the Cretans,\n\t<\/p>\n

Raised his brow of pride in the lofty Argive assembly.\n\t<\/p>\n

Tall like a pine that stands up on the slope of The
\n\tscallion mountains <\/p>\n

Over peering a cascade’s edge and is seen from the valleys,\n\t<\/p>\n

Such he seemed to their eyes who remembered Greece and her waters,\n\t<\/p>\n

Heard in their souls the torrent’s leap and the wind on the hill-tops.\n\t<\/p>\n

"Long1<\/sup> have I marvelled at heart2<\/sup> to behold in this levy of heroes\n\t<\/p>\n

Armies so many, chieftains so warlike suffer in silence\n\t<\/p>\n

Pride of a single man when he thunders and lightens in Troas.\n\t<\/p>\n

Doubtless the nations that follow his cry are many and valiant,\n\t<\/p>\n

Doubtless the winds of the north have made him a runner and spearman.\n\t<\/p>\n

Shall not then force be the King ? is not strength the seal of the godhead ?\n\t<\/p>\n

This my soul replies, ‘Agamemnon the Atreid only\n\t<\/p>\n

Choosing for leader and king I have come to the toil and the warfare.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t1<\/sup> Oft <\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t2<\/sup>  Alternative to "at heart" : O Greeks, <\/font>\n\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

Page-86<\/p>\n

\n

\n

<\/p>\n

Wisdom and greatness he owns and the wealth and renown of his fathers\n\t<\/p>\n

But for this whelp of the northlands, nursling of rocks and the sea-cliff,\n\t<\/p>\n

Who with his bleak and rough-hewn Myrmidons hastes to the carnage,\n\t<\/p>\n

Leader of wolves to their prey, not the king of a humanised nation.\n\t<\/p>\n

\n\tNot to such head of the cold-drifting mist and the gloom veiled Chaos, <\/p>\n

Crude to our culture and light and void of our noble
\n\tfulfillments <\/p>\n

Minos shall bend his knee nor Crete, a barbarian’s vassal,\n\t<\/p>\n

Stain her old glories.’ Oh, but he boasts of a goddess for mother\n\t<\/p>\n

Born in the senseless seas mid the erring wastes of the Ocean I1<\/sup>\n\t<\/p>\n

Gods we adore enough in the heavens, and if from us Hades\n\t<\/p>\n

Claim one more of this breed, we can bear that excess to her glories,\n\t<\/p>\n

Not upon earth these new-born deities huge-pensioned, sate less\n\t<\/p>\n

Who with their mouth as of Orcus and stride of the ruinous Ocean\n\t<\/p>\n

Sole would be seen mid her sons and devour all life’s joy and its greatness.\n\t<\/p>\n

Millions must empty their lives that a few men may
\n\tovershadow the nations, <\/p>\n

Numberless homes must weep but their hunger of glory is sated !\n\t<\/p>\n

Troy shall descend to the shadow; gods and men have condemned her,\n\t<\/p>\n

Weary, hating her fame. Her dreams, her grandeur, her beauty,\n\t<\/p>\n

All her greatness and deeds that now end in miserable ashes,\n\t<\/p>\n

Ceasing shall fade and be as a tale that was forged by the poets.\n\t<\/p>\n

Only a name shall go down from her past and the woe of her ending\n\t<\/p>\n

Naked to hatred and rapine and punished with rape and with slaughter.\n\t<\/p>\n

Never again must her marble pride high-crowned on her hill-top\n\t<\/p>\n

Look forth dominion and menace over the crested Aegean\n\t<\/p>\n

Shadowing2<\/sup> Achaia. Fire shall abolish the fame of her ramparts,\n\t<\/p>\n

Earth her foundations forget. Shall she stand then affronting the azure?\n\t<\/p>\n

Dire in our path like a lioness once again must we meet her,\n\t<\/p>\n

Leap and roar of her led by the spear of Achilles, not Hector !\n\t<\/p>\n

Asia by Peleus guided3<\/sup> shall stride on us after Antenor ?\n\t<\/p>\n

Though one should plan in the night of his thoughts where no eye can
\npursue him,\n<\/p>\n

Instincts of men discover their foe and like hounds in the darkness\n\t<\/p>\n

Bay at a danger hid. No silence of servitude trembling\n\t<\/p>\n

Trains to bondage sons of the race of whom Aeolus father\n\t<\/p>\n

Storm-voiced was and free, nor like other groupings of mortals\n\t<\/p>\n

Moulded we were by Zeus, but supremely were sifted and fashioned;\n\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t1<\/font><\/sup> White and swift and foam-footed, vast Oceanus daughter !
\n\t\t<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t2<\/sup> Alternatives : Lessening, Stunting, Dwarfing <\/font>\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t3<\/sup> prompted <\/font><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

Page-87<\/p>\n

\n

\n

<\/p>\n

Other are Danaus’ sons and other the lofty Achaians:\n\t<\/p>\n

\n\tChainless like Nature’s tribes in their many-voiced colonies founded <\/p>\n

They their god-given impulse shall keep and their natures of freedom.\n\t<\/p>\n

Only themselves shall rule them, only their equal spirits\n\t<\/p>\n

Bowed to the voice of a law that is just, obeying their leaders\n\t<\/p>\n

Awed by the gods. So with order and balance and harmony noble\n\t<\/p>\n

Life shall move golden, free in its steps and just in its measure,\n\t<\/p>\n

Glad of a manhood complete, by excess and defect
\n\tunformatted. <\/p>\n

Freedom is life to the Argive’s soul, to
\n\tAeolian’s peoples. <\/p>\n

Dulled by a yoke our nations would perish, or live but as shadows,\n\t<\/p>\n

Changed into phantoms of men with the name of a Greek for a byword.\n\t<\/p>\n

Not like the East and her sons is our race, they who bow to a mortal.\n\t<\/p>\n

Gods there may be in this flesh that suffers and dies; Achaia\n\t<\/p>\n

Knows them not. Need if he feels of a world to endure and adore him,\n\t<\/p>\n

Hearts let him seek that are friends with the dust, overpowered by their
\nheavens,\n<\/p>\n

Here in these Asian vastnesses, here where the heats and the perfumes\n\t<\/p>\n

Sicken the soul and the sense and a soil of indolent plenty\n\t<\/p>\n

Breeds like the corn in its multitudes natures accustomed to thraldom.\n\t<\/p>\n

Here let the northern Achilles seek for his slaves and adorers,\n\t<\/p>\n

Not in the sea-ringed isles and not in the mountains Achaian.\n\t<\/p>\n

Ten long years of the shock and the war-cry twixt rampart and ocean\n\t<\/p>\n

Hurting our hearts we have toiled; shall they reap not their ease in the
\nvengeance ?\n<\/p>\n

Troas is strewn1<\/sup> with the lives of our friends and with ashes remembered;\n\t<\/p>\n

Shall not Meriones slain be reckoned in blood and in treasure ?\n\t<\/p>\n

Cretan Idomeneus girt with the strength of his iron retainers\n\t<\/p>\n

Slaying and burning will stride through the city of music and pleasure,\n\t<\/p>\n

Babes of her blood borne high on the spears at the head of my column,\n\t<\/p>\n

Wives of her princes dragged through her streets in its pomp to their passion,\n\t<\/p>\n

Gold of Troy stream richly past in the gaze of Achilles.\n\t<\/p>\n

Then let him threaten my days, then let him rally the might of his trumpets,\n\t<\/p>\n

Yet shall a Cretan spear make search in his heart for his godhead.\n\t<\/p>\n

Limbs of this god can be pierced; not alone shall I fleet down to Hades."\n\t<\/p>\n

After him rose from the throne the Locrian swift-footed Ajax.\n\t<\/p>\n

"Kings of the Greeks, throw a veil o’er2<\/sup> your griefs, lay a curb on your anger.\n\t<\/p>\n

Moved man’s tongue in its wrath looses speech that is hard to be pardoned,\n\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t1<\/font><\/sup> sown <\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t2<\/font><\/sup> on <\/font><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

Page-88<\/p>\n

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<\/p>\n

Afterwards stilled we regret, we forgive. If all were resented,\n\t<\/p>\n

None could live on this earth that is thick with our stumblings. Always\n\t<\/p>\n

This is the burden of man that he acts from his heart and his passions,\n\t<\/p>\n

Stung by the goad of the gods he hacks1<\/sup> at the ties that are dearest.\n\t<\/p>\n

Lust was the guide they sent us, wrath was a whip for his coursers,\n\t<\/p>\n

Madness they made the heart’s comrade, repentance they gave for its\n\t<\/p>\n

This too our hearts demand that we bear with our friend when he chides us.\n\t<\/p>\n

Insult forgive from the noble embittered soul of Achilles !\n\t<\/p>\n

When with the scorn and the wrath of a lover our depths are tormented,\n\t<\/p>\n

Who shall forbid the cry and who shall measure the anguish ?\n\t<\/p>\n

Sharper the pain that looses the taunt than theirs who endure it.\n\t<\/p>\n

Rage has wept in my blood as I lived through the flight o’er the pastures,\n\t<\/p>\n

Shame coils a snake in my back when thought whispers of Penthesilea.\n\t<\/p>\n

Bright shine his morns if he mows down this hell-bitch armed by the furies !\n\t<\/p>\n

But for this shaft of his pity it came from a lesser Pelides,\n\t<\/p>\n

Not from the slayer of Hector, not from the doom of Sarpedon,\n\t<\/p>\n

\n\tMammon’s mighty overthrow , the blood-stained splendid Achilles. <\/p>\n

These are the Trojan snares and the fateful smile of a woman !\n\t<\/p>\n

This thing the soul of a man shall not bear that blood of his labour\n\t<\/p>\n

Vainly has brought him victory leaving life to the hated;\n\t<\/p>\n

This is a wound to our race that a Greek should whisper of mercy.\n\t<\/p>\n

Who can pardon a foe though a god should descend to persuade him?\n\t<\/p>\n

Justice is first of the gods, but for Pity ’twas spawned by a mortal,\n\t<\/p>\n

Pity that only disturbs God’s measures and false and unrighteous\n\t<\/p>\n

Holds man back from the joy he might win and troubles his bosom.\n\t<\/p>\n

Troy has a debt to our hearts; she shall pay it all down to the
\n\tbolo, <\/p>\n

Blood of the fall and anguish of flight when the heroes are slaughtered,\n\t<\/p>\n

Days without joy while we labour and see not the eyes of our parents,\n\t<\/p>\n

Toil of the war-cry, nights that drag past upon alien beaches,\n\t<\/p>\n

Helen ravished, Paris triumphant, endless the items\n\t<\/p>\n

Crowd on a wrath in the memory, kept as in bronze the credit\n\t<\/p>\n

Stretches out long and blood-stained and savage. Most for the terror\n\t<\/p>\n

Graved in the hearts of our fathers that still by our youth is remembered,\n\t<\/p>\n

Hellas waiting and crouching, dreading the spear of the Trojan,\n\t<\/p>\n

Flattering, sending gifts and pale in her mortal anguish,\n\t<\/p>\n

Agony long of a race at the mercy of iron invaders,\n\t<\/p>\n

This shall pay most, the city of pride, the insolent nation,\n\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t1<\/sup> hews <\/font><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

Page-89<\/p>\n

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Pay with her temples charred and her golden mansions in ruins,\n\t<\/p>\n

Pay with the shrieks of her ravished virgins, the groans of the aged\n\t<\/p>\n

Burned in their burning homes for our holiday. Music and dancing\n\t<\/p>\n

Shall be in Troy of another sort than she loved in her greatness,\n\t<\/p>\n

Merry with conquered gold and insulting the world with her flutings.\n\t<\/p>\n

All that she boasted of, statue and picture, all shall be shattered;\n\t<\/p>\n

Out of our shame she chiselled them, rich with our blood they were coloured\n\t<\/p>\n

This not the gods from Olympus crowding, this not Achilles,\n\t<\/p>\n

This not your will, O ye Greeks, shall deny to the Locrian Ajax.\n\t<\/p>\n

Even though Pallas divine with her aegis counselling mercy\n\t<\/p>\n

Cumbered my path I would push her aside to leap on my victims.\n\t<\/p>\n

Learn shall all men on that day how a warrior deals with his foemen."\n\t<\/p>\n

Darting flames from his eyes the barbarian sate and there rose up\n\t<\/p>\n

Frowning Tydeus’s son, the Tirynthian, strong Diomedes.\n\t<\/p>\n

"Ajax Oileus, thy words are foam on the lips of a madman.\n\t<\/p>\n

Cretan Idomeneus, silence the vaunt that thy strength can fulfil not.\n\t<\/p>\n

Strong art thou, fearless in
\n\tbated, but not by thy spear-point, O hero, <\/p>\n

Hector fell, nor Sarpedon, nor Troilus leading the war-cry.\n\t<\/p>\n

These were Achilles’ deeds which a god might have done out of heaven.\n\t<\/p>\n

Him we upbraid who saved, nor would any now who revile him\n\t<\/p>\n

Still have a living tongue for ingratitude but for the hero.\n\t<\/p>\n

Much to the man forgive who has saved his race and his country:\n\t<\/p>\n

Him shall the term less centuries praise when we are forgotten.\n\t<\/p>\n

Curb then your speech, crush down in your hearts the grief and the choler;\n\t<\/p>\n

Has not Atrides curbed who is greatest of all in our nations\n\t<\/p>\n

Wrath in the heart and the words that are winged for our bale from our
\nbosoms ?\n<\/p>\n

For as a load to be borne were these passions given to mortals.\n\t<\/p>\n

Honour Achilles, conquer Troy by his god-given valour.\n\t<\/p>\n

Now of our discords and griefs debate not for joy of our foemen !\n\t<\/p>\n

First over Priam’s corpse stand victors in Ilion’s ramparts;\n\t<\/p>\n

Discord then let arise or concord solder our nations."\n\t<\/p>\n

Rugged words and few as fit for the soul that he harboured\n\t<\/p>\n

Great Tydides spoke and ceased; and there rose up impatient\n\t<\/p>\n

Tall mid the spears of the north the hero king Protho\u00ebnor,\n\t<\/p>\n

Prince in Cadmeian Thebes who with Leitus led on his thousands;\n\t<\/p>\n

"Loudly thou vauntest thy freedom Ionian Minos recalling,\n\t<\/p>\n

Lord of thy southern isles who gildst with thy tribute Mycenae !\n\t<\/p>\n

We have not bowed our neck to Pelops’ line or at Argos’\n\t<\/p>\n

Iron heel have not crouched nor clasped like thy time-wearied nations,
\n\t<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Page-90<\/p>\n

\n

\n

Python-befriended, gripped in the coils of an iron protection,\n\t<\/p>\n

Bondage soothed by a name and destruction masked as a helper.\n\t<\/p>\n

We are the young and lofty and free-souled sons of the Northland.\n\t<\/p>\n

Nobly Peleus, the Aeacid, seer of a vaster Achaia,\n\t<\/p>\n

Pride and his strength and his deeds renouncing for joy of that vision,\n\t<\/p>\n

Yielded his hoary right to the sapling stock of Atrides.\n\t<\/p>\n

Noble, we gave to that nobleness freely our grandiose approval.\n\t<\/p>\n

Not as a foe then, O King, who angered sharpens his arrows,\n\t<\/p>\n

Fits his wrath and hate to the bow and aims at the heart-strings\n\t<\/p>\n

But from the Truth that is seated within me compelling my accents,\n\t<\/p>\n

Taught by my fathers stern not to lie nor to hide what I harbour,\n\t<\/p>\n

Truth the goddess I speak, nor constrain the voice in my bosom.\n\t<\/p>\n

Monarch, I own thee first of the Greeks save in valour and counsel.\n\t<\/p>\n

Brave but less than Achilles, wise but not as Odysseus,\n\t<\/p>\n

First still in greatness and calm and majesty. Yet, Agamemnon,\n\t<\/p>\n

Love of thy house and thy tribe disfigures the king in thy nature;\n\t<\/p>\n

Thou thy brother
\n\tprefer rest, thy friends and thy nation unjustly, <\/p>\n

Even as a common man whose heart is untaught by Athene,\n\t<\/p>\n

Beastlike favours his brood forgetting the law of the noble.\n\t<\/p>\n

Therefore Ajax grew wroth and Teucer sailing abandoned\n\t<\/p>\n

Over the angry seas this stern fierce toil of the nations;\n\t<\/p>\n

Therefore Achilles has turned in his soul and gazed towards the Orient.\n\t<\/p>\n

Yet are we fixed in our truth like hills in heaven, Atrides;\n\t<\/p>\n

Greece and her safety and good in our passions strive to remember.\n\t<\/p>\n

Nor of this stamp was thy brother’s speech; such words
\n\tLace daemon <\/p>\n

Hearing may praise in her kings; we speak not in Thebes what is shameful.\n\t<\/p>\n

\n\tShame fuller thoughts have never escaped from lips that were high-born. <\/p>\n

We will not send forth earth’s greatest to die in a friendless
\n\tbated, <\/p>\n

Nor will forsake the daughter of Zeus and white glory of Hellas,\n\t<\/p>\n

Helen the golden-haired Tyndarid, left for the joy of our foemen,\n\t<\/p>\n

Chained to Paris’ delight, earth’s goddess the slave of the Phrygian,\n\t<\/p>\n

Though Menelaus the Spartan abandon his wife to the Trojans\n\t<\/p>\n

And from the field where he lavished the unvalued blood of his people\n\t<\/p>\n

Flee to a hearth dishonoured. Not the
\n\tAstrid’s sullied grandeurs, <\/p>\n

Greece to defend we have toiled through the summers and lingering autumns\n\t<\/p>\n

Blind with our blood; for our country we bleed, repelling her foemen.\n\t<\/p>\n

Dear is that loss to our veins and still that expense we would lavish,\n\t<\/p>\n

Claiming its price from the heavens, though thou sail with thy brother and
\ncohorts.\n<\/p>\n

Weakling, flee ! take thy southern ships, take thy Spartan levies.\n\t<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Page-91<\/p>\n

\n

\n

Still will the Greeks fight on in the Troad helped by thy absence.\n\t<\/p>\n

For though the beaches vast grow empty, the tents can be numbered\n\t<\/p>\n

Standing friendless and few on the huge and hostile
\n\tChampaign. <\/p>\n

Always a few will be left whom the
\n\tthreatening of Fate cannot conquer, <\/p>\n

Always earth has sons1<\/sup> whose courage waits not on fortune;\n\t<\/p>\n

Hellas’ heart will be firm confronting the threat of the victor,\n\t<\/p>\n

Sthenelus war and Tydides, Odysseus and Locrian Ajax,\n\t<\/p>\n

Thebes’ unconquered sons and the hero chiefs of the northland.\n\t<\/p>\n

Stern and persistent as Time or the seas and as deaf to affliction\n\t<\/p>\n

We will clash on in the fight unsatisfied, fain of the war-cry,\n\t<\/p>\n

Helped by the gods and our cause through the dawns and the blood-haunted evenings,\n\t<\/p>\n

Rising in armour with morn and outstaying the red of the sunset,\n\t<\/p>\n

Till in her ashes Troy forgets that she lusted for empire\n\t<\/p>\n

Or in our own the honour and valour of Greece are extinguished."\n\t<\/p>\n

So
\n\tProtho\u00ebnor spoke nor pleased with his words Agamemnon; <\/p>\n

But to the northern kings they were summer rain on the visage.\n\t<\/p>\n

Last Laertes’ son, the Ithacan, war-wise Odysseus,\n\t<\/p>\n

Rose up wide-acclaimed; like an oak was he stunted in stature,\n\t<\/p>\n

Broad-shouldered, firm-necked, lone and sufficient, as on some island\n\t<\/p>\n

Regnant one peak whose genial streams flow down to the valley,\n\t<\/p>\n

Dusk on its slopes are the olives, the storms but in vain at its shoulders,\u2014\n\t<\/p>\n

Such he stood and pressed the earth with his feet like one vanquished,\n\t<\/p>\n

Striving, but held to his will. So Atlas might seem were he mortal,\n\t<\/p>\n

Atlas whose vastness free from impatience suffers the heavens,\n\t<\/p>\n

Suffering spares the earth, the thought-haunted motionless Titan,\n\t<\/p>\n

Bearer of worlds. In those jarring tribes no man was his hater;\n\t<\/p>\n

For as the Master of all guides humanity, so this Odysseus\n\t<\/p>\n

Dealt with men and helped and guided them, careful and selfless,\n\t<\/p>\n

Crafty, tender and wise,\u2014like the Master who bends o’er his creatures,\n\t<\/p>\n

Suffers their sins and their errors and guides them screening his guidance;\n\t<\/p>\n

Each through his nature He leads and the world by the lure of His wisdom.\n\t<\/p>\n

"Princes of Argolis, chiefs of the
\n\tLocrian’s, spears of the northland, <\/p>\n

Warriors vowed to a sacred hate and a vengeance that’s holy,\n\t<\/p>\n

Stateless still is that hate, that vengeance cries for its victims,\n\t<\/p>\n

\n\tStill is the altar un laden, the priest yet waits with the death-knife. <\/p>\n

Who while the rites are unfinished, the gods unsatisfied, impious\n\t<\/p>\n

Turns in his heart to the feuds of the house and his strife with his equals ?\n\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t1<\/font><\/sup> Alternative to "earth has sons" : souls are born<\/font><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Page-92<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\n\tNone will approve the evil that fell from the younger Atrides; <\/p>\n

\n\tBut it was anger and sorrow that spoke, it was not Menelaus. <\/p>\n

Who would return from Troy and arrive with his war-wasted legions\n\t<\/p>\n

Back to his home in populous city or orcharded island;\n\t<\/p>\n

There from his ships disembarked look round upon eyes that grow joyless\n\t<\/p>\n

Seeking a father or husband slain, a brother heart-treasured,\n\t<\/p>\n

Mothers in tears for their children, and when he is asked ‘O our chieftain,\n\t<\/p>\n

What dost thou bring back in place of our dead to fill hearts that are empty?’\n\t<\/p>\n

Who then will say, T bring back my shame and the shame of my nation;\n\t<\/p>\n

Troy yet stands confronting her skies and Helen in Troya’ ?\n\t<\/p>\n

Nor for such foil will I go back to Ithaca or to Laertes,\n\t<\/p>\n

Rather far would I sail in my ships past southern Cythera,\n\t<\/p>\n

Turning away in silence from waters where on some headland\n\t<\/p>\n

Gazing south o’er the waves my father waits for my coming,\n\t<\/p>\n

Leaving Sicily’s shores and on through the pillars of Gades.\n\t<\/p>\n

Far I would sail whence sound of me never should come to Achaia\n\t<\/p>\n

Out into tossing worlds and weltering reaches of tempest\n\t<\/p>\n

Dwarfing the swell of the wide-wayed Aegean,\u2014Oceans unbounded\n\t<\/p>\n

Either by cliff or by sandy margin, only the heavens\n\t<\/p>\n

Ever receding before my keel as it ploughs on for ever\n\t<\/p>\n

Frail and alone in a world of waves. Even there would I venture\n\t<\/p>\n

Seeking some island unknown, not return with shame to my fathers.\n\t<\/p>\n

Well might they wonder how souls like theirs begot us for their offspring.\n\t<\/p>\n

Fighters1<\/sup>
\n\twar-afflicted, princes2<\/sup> banded by heaven,\n<\/p>\n

Wounds and defeat you have borne ; bear too their errors who lead you.\n\t<\/p>\n

Mortals are kings and have hearts ; our leaders too have their passions.\n\t<\/p>\n

Then if they err, yet still obey lest anarchy fostered,\n\t<\/p>\n

Discord and deaf rebellion that speed like a poison through kingdoms,\n\t<\/p>\n

Break all this army in pieces while Ate mocking at mortals\n\t<\/p>\n

Trails to a shameful end this noble3<\/sup> essay of the nations.\n\t<\/p>\n

Who among men has not thoughts that he holds for the wisest, though
\nfoolish ?\n<\/p>\n

Who, though feeble and nought, esteems not his strength o’er his fellow’s ?\n\t<\/p>\n

Therefore the wisest and strongest choose out a king and a leader,\n\t<\/p>\n

Not as a perfect arbiter armed with impossible virtues\n\t<\/p>\n

Far o’er our heads and our ken like a god high-judging his creatures,\n\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t1<\/font><\/sup> Chieftains <\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t2<\/sup> champions <\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t3<\/sup> lofty <\/font><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-93<\/p>\n

\n

\n

But as a man among men who is valiant, wise and far-seeing,\n\t<\/p>\n

One of ourselves and the knot of our wills and the sword of our action.\n\t<\/p>\n

Him they advise and obey and cover his errors with silence.\n\t<\/p>\n

Not Agamemnon the Atreid, Greeks, we obey in this mortal ;\n\t<\/p>\n

Greece we obey ; for she walks in his gait and commands by his gestures.\n\t<\/p>\n

Evil he works then who loosens this living knot of Achaia,\n\t<\/p>\n

Falling apart from his nation ; who, wed to a solitary virtue,\n\t<\/p>\n

Deeming he does but right, renounces the yoke of his fellows,\u2014\n\t<\/p>\n

Errs more than hearts of the mire that in blindness and weakness go
\nstumbling.\n<\/p>\n

Man when he spurns his kind, when he equals himself with the deathless,\n\t<\/p>\n

Even in his virtues sins and, erring, calls up Ate :\n\t<\/p>\n

For among men we were born, not as wild beasts sole in a fastness.\n\t<\/p>\n

Oft with a name are misled the passionate hearts of the noble ;\n\t<\/p>\n

Chasing highly some image of good they trample its substance.\n\t<\/p>\n

Evil is worked, not justice, when into the mould of our thinkings\n\t<\/p>\n

God we would force and enchain to the throb of our hearts the immortals,\u2014\n\t<\/p>\n

Justice and Virtue, her sister ; for where is justice mid creatures\n\t<\/p>\n

Perfectly ? Even the gods are betrayed by our clay to a semblance.\n\t<\/p>\n

Evil not good he sows who lifted high o’er his fellows\n\t<\/p>\n

Dreams by his light or his force to compel this deity earth-born,\n\t<\/p>\n

Evil though his wisdom exceeded the gathered light of the millions,\n\t<\/p>\n

Evil though his single fate were vaster than Troy and Achaia.\n\t<\/p>\n

Less is our gain from gods upon earth than from men in our image ;\n\t<\/p>\n

Just is the slow and common march, not a lonely swiftness\n\t<\/p>\n

Far from our human reach that is vowed to impossible strivings.<\/p>\n

 Better the stumbling leader of men than inimitable paces.\n\t<\/p>\n

If he be Peleus’ son and his name the Pthian Achilles,\n\t<\/p>\n

Worse is the bane : lo, the Ilian battlefield red with his errors !\n\t<\/p>\n

Yet, O ye Greeks, if the heart returns that was loved, though it wandered,\n\t<\/p>\n

Though with some pride it return and reproaching the friends that it fled
\nfrom,\n<\/p>\n

Be not less fond than heart-satisfied parents who yearn o’er that coming,\n\t<\/p>\n

Smile at its pride and accept the wanderer. Happier music\n\t<\/p>\n

Never has beat on my grief-vexed ears than the steps of Achilles\n\t<\/p>\n

Turning back to this Greece and the cry of his strength in its rising.\n\t<\/p>\n

Zeus is awake in this man who is dreadful and world-slaying puissance\n\t<\/p>\n

Gave in an hour of portentous birth to the single Achilles.\n\t<\/p>\n

Taken today are Ilion’s towers, a dead man is Priam.\n\t<\/p>\n

Cross not the hero’s will in his hour, Agamemnon Atrides,\n\t<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Page-94<\/p>\n

\n

\n

Cross not the man whom the gods have chosen to work out their purpose\n\t<\/p>\n

Then when he rises ; his hour is his, though thine be all morrows.\n\t<\/p>\n

First in the chambers of Paris’ delight let us stable our horses,\n\t<\/p>\n

Afterwards bale that is best shall be done persuading Achilles ;\n\t<\/p>\n

Doubt not the gods’ decisions, awful, immutable, ruthless.\n\t<\/p>\n

Flame shall lick Troy’s towers and the limbs of her old men and infants.\n\t<\/p>\n

\n\tO not today, not now remember the faults of the hero ! <\/p>\n

Follow him rather bravely and blindly as children their leader,\n\t<\/p>\n

Guide your fate through the war-surge loud in the wake of his exploits,\n\t<\/p>\n

Rise, O ye kings of the Greeks ! leave debate for the voices of battle.\n\t<\/p>\n

Peal forth the war-shout, pour forth the spear-sleet, surge towards Troya.\n\t<\/p>\n

1 lion falls today ; we shall turn in our ships to our children."\n\t<\/p>\n

So Odysseus spoke and the Achaians heard him applauding ;\n\t<\/p>\n

Ever the pack by the voice of the mighty is seized and attracted !\n\t<\/p>\n

Then from his seat Agamemnon arising his staff to the herald\n\t<\/p>\n

Gave and around him arose the Kings of the west and its leaders.\n\t<\/p>\n

Loud their assembly broke with a stern and martial rumour.
\n\t<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Page-95<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Book Six THE BOOK OF THE CHIEFTAINS BUT from their midst up rearing a brow that no crown could ennoble, Male and kingly of front…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[91],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ilion-an-epic-in-quantitative-hexameters","wpcat-91-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3661"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3661\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}