The Iliad; - Truth Seeker Times

Jove gave it to his minister.
Prince Hermeas bestow'd it next
Pelops again with it adom'd
But to Thyestes, rich in rams,
Thyestes yielded it in turn
For lordship over many an isle,
So resting him on this, he spake
" Friends, heroes of the Danai
Satumius hath mightily
Cruel ; who formerly to me
To storm wellfenced Ilium
But now an evil artifice
Argos to seek, ignoble ; sith
So seemeth it the wiU to be
Who hath the lofty pinnacles
THE ILIAD. [book II,
the slaughterer of Argus
;
on courser-smiting Pelops.
Atreus, the people's shepherd, 105
Atreus bequeath'd it dying
to Agamemnon's honour, ..
: ;
and o'er the whole of Argos.
these words among the Argives
: ; :
and ministers of Ares ! 110
in dire annoy enchain'd me
with word and nod assented,
and bear away the booty,
hath plotted, and doth urge me
I many lives have wasted,
of Jupiter o'ermatching,
of many a city lower'd.
And yet will lower ; for his sway is mightiest to mortals.
But this is eke to future age
That, after effort impotent.
So choice and multitudinous.
Against a town of fewer men :
For if, by joint agreement, we,
A faithful treaty chose to strike,
an Ignominious rumour.v'
If Troians severally cuU'd
the hearthmen of the city, 125
And we, the fiLchaians, into troops of half a score were marshall'd.
115
a people of Achaians, 120
was foil'd in war and combat
nor see we end in prospect,
both Troians and Achaians,
and each to count their numbers
And every troop a man of Troy to bear the wine selected
FuU many a demi-score, I ween, would lack the cup-presenter.
So much superiour, I say, Achaia's sons in number
Are than the city-dweUing throng of Troians : but, to aid them, 130
From many a friendly city, men spear-brandishing are present.
Who mightily distract my hands, nor suffer me, though eager,
103. Hermeas (Mercury) slew the hundred-eyed Argus.
105. Pelops came from Lydia to Greece, into " the land of Apis " (see v. 269
ahove), which was from him called (later than Homer) Peloponnesus, or island
(peninsula) of Pelops. Previously the race of Perseus reigned in Mycenae
Pelops was the founder of a new dynasty of which Homer here intends to
record the succession.
108. Argos, here perhaps means Argolis, a district of Peloponnesus.