The Iliad of Homer - Get a Free Blog

urial; the next morning the soldiers are
sent with mules and waggons to fetch
wood for the pyre. The funeral procession,
and the offering their hair to the
dead. Achilles sacrifices several animals,
and lastly twelve Trojan captives, at the
pile; then sets fire to it. He pays libations
to the Winds, which (at the instance of
Iris) rise, and raise the flames. When the
pile has burned all night, they gather the
bones, place them in an urn of gold, and
raise the tomb. Achilles institutes the funeral
games: the chariot-race, the fight of
the caestus, the wrestling, the foot-race,
the single combat, the discus, the shooting
with arrows, the darting the javelin:
the various descriptions of which, and the
various success of the several antagonists,
make the greatest part of the book.
In this book ends the thirtieth day. The
night following, the ghost of Patroclus
appears to Achilles: the one-and-thirtieth