Lines 1-151

The long delayed end of the laborious war and the ambush, even the horse fashioned of Argive Athena, straightway to me in my haste do thou tell, O Calliopeia, remitting copious speech; and the ancient strife of men, in that war now decided, do thou resolve with speedy song.

Already the tenth year was rolling on and old had grown the strain of war, insatiate of blood, for Trojans and Danaans. With slaying of men the spears were weary, the menace of the swords died, quenched was the din of breastplate, rent and perishing the coiled fabric of shield-carrying baldricks; the shield endured no more to abide the hurtling of javelins, unstrung was the bent bow, the swift arrows decayed. And the horse -- some apart at the idle manger, with heads bowed piteously, bewailed their fellow horses, some mourned to miss their perished charioteers.

Low lay the son of Peleus and with him his comrade dead: over his young son Antilochus old Nestor mourned: Aias with self-dealt wound had unstrung his mighty form, and bathed his foeman’s sword in the rain of frenzied blood. The Trojans, lamenting over the shameful dragging of Hector, had not only their domestic pain, but groaning for the woes of men of alien speech they wept in turn for their many-tongued allies. The Lycians wept for Sarpedon whom his mother, glorying in the bed of Zeus, had sent to Troy; howbeit he fell by the spear of Patroclus, son of Menoetius, and there was shed about him by his sire a mist that wept tears of blood. The Thracians wailed for Rhesus that in the guileful night was fettered by an evil sleep. And for the fate of Memnon Eos, his mother, hung aloft a cloud in heaven and stole away the light of shamefast day. The women from Thermodon dear to Ares, beating the unripe, unsucked circle of their breasts, mourned the warlike maiden Penthesileia, who came unto the dance of war, that war of many guests, and with her woman’s hand scattered the cloud of men back to their ships beside the sea; only Achilles withstood her with his ashen spear and slew and despoiled her and gave her funeral.

And still all Ilios stood, by reason of her god-built towers, established upon unshaken foundations, and at the tedious delay the people of the Achaeans chafed. And now Athena, unwearying though she be, would have shrunk from her latest labour and all her sweat had been in vain, had not the seer turned from the bride-stealing lust of Deiphobus, and come from Ilios as guest of the Danaans, and, as doing a favour to Menelaus in his travail, prophesied the late-fulfilled ruin of his own fatherland. And at the prophesying of jealous Helenus they straightway prepared an end of their long toil. From Scyros, too, leaving that city of fair maidens, came the son of Achilles and august Deidameia; who, albeit he mantled not yet on his goodly temples the down of manhood, showed the prowess of his sire, young warrior though he was. Came, too, Athena to the Danaans with her holy image; the prey of war but a helper to her friends.

Now, too, by the counsel of the goddess her servant Epeius wrought the image that was the foe of Troy, even the giant horse. And wood was cut and came down to the plain from Ida, even Ida whence formerly Phereclus built the ships for Alexander that were the beginning of woe. Fitted to broadest sides he made its hollow belly, in size as a curved ship which the carpenter turns true to the line. And the neck he fixed to carven breast and bespangled the purple-fringed mane with yellow gold; and the mane, waving aloft on the arched neck, was sealed on the head with crested band. In two circles he set the gem-like eyes of sea-green beryl and blood-red amethyst: and in the mingling of them a double colour flashed; the eyes were red and ringed with the green gems. In the jaws he set white rows of jagged teeth, eager to champ the ends of the well-twisted bit. And he opened secret paths in the mighty mouth to preserve the tide of breath for the men in hiding, and through the nostrils flowed the life-giving air. Ears were fixed on the top of its temples, pricked up, ever ready to await the sound of the trumpet. And back and flanks he fitted together and supple backbone, and joined hip-joint to smooth hip. Unto the heels of the feet trailed the flowing tail, even as vine weighed down with twisted tassels. And the feet that moved with the dappled knees -- even as if they were about to set them to the winged race, so were they eager, yet constraint bade them bide. Not without bronze were the hooves that stood below the legs, but they were bound with spirals of shining tortoise and hardly touched the ground with the strong-hoofed bronze. Also he set therein a barred door and a fashioned ladder: the one that unseen, fitted to the sides, it might carry the Achaean company of the famous horse this way and that; the other that, unfolded and firmly put together, it might be for them a path whereby to speed upward or downward. And he girt the horse about on white neck and cheeks with purple-flowered straps and coiling spirals of compelling bridle inlaid with ivory and silver-flashing bronze. And when he had wrought all the warlike horse, he set a well-spoked wheel under each of its feet that when dragged over the plain it might be obedient to the rein, and not travel a difficult path under stress of hands.

So the horse flashed with terror and great beauty, wide and high; not even Ares, lord of horses, would have refused to drive it, had he found it alive. And a great wall was driven about it, lest any of the Achaeans should behold it beforehand and fire the snare revealed. And beside the ship of Agamemnon from Mycenae the kings of the Achaeans gathered to council, avoiding the din and tumult of the stirring hosts. Then impetuous Athena took the likeness of a clear-voiced herald and stood by Odysseus to counsel him, daubing a man’s voice with honeyed nectar. And, revolving his mind in godlike counsels, at first he stood like a man of empty wits fixing on the ground the gaze of his unturning eye; but suddenly he opened his lips and delivered him of everflowing speech and thundered terribly, and poured, as from an airy spring, a great torrent of honey-dropping snow.

"O friends, now is the secret ambush prepared, by human hands but by the counsels of Athena. Do ye which have most trust in the might of your hands, heartily follow me with valiant mind and enduring soul; for it is not seemly that we should abide here a long time labouring and growing old without accomplishment or profit. Rather should we, while yet we live, do some deed worthy to be sung, or by bloody death escape the shameful reproach of cowardice. We have better comfort than they -- if ye have not forgotten the sparrow and the ancient serpent and the fair plane-tree and the mother devoured with her swiftly perishing young, and her tender nestlings.

"And if old Calchas in his soothsaying deferred the day of fulfilment, yet even so the prophecies of Helenus, the alien seer, call us to a right speedy victory. Therefore hearken ye to me and let us hasten with good courage in to the belly of the horse, that the Trojans may lead up into Ilios the guileful craft of the dauntless goddess, a self-taken woe, embracing their own doom.

"And do ye others loose the stern cables of the ships and yourselves cast fire upon the plaited tents, and leaving desolate the shore of the land of Ilios, sail ye all together on your pretended homeward way, until the hour that to you, gathered on the neighbouring beach, a beacon at eventide, stretched from a fair-anchoring place of outlook, shall give the signal to sail back again. And then let there be no hesitation of hurrying oarsmen nor other cloud of fear, such as the nights bring to men to terrify the mobile soul. But let each clan respect its former valour, and let no man put to shame his fame, so that each may win a recompense for chivalry worthy of his toils.”