The war continued without decisive result for nine years. Then an event occurred which seemed likely to prove fatal to the cause of the Greeks, -- a quarrel between Achilles and Agamemnon. It is at this point that the great poem of Homer,
the Iliad, begins.
Of this and the other epics from which the story is drawn an account will be found in Chapter XXXII below; and a list of the best English translations, in the corresponding sections of the Commentary. What delight one may derive from reading the Greek epics even in translation is nowhere better expressed than in the following sonnet of John Keats,
On First Looking into Chapman's Homer:
Much have I travel'd in the realms of gold,
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne:
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
-- Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
He stared at the Pacific -- and all his men
Look'd at each other with a wild surmise --
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.
The Greeks, though unsuccessful against Troy, had taken the neighboring and allied cities; and in the division of the spoil a female captive, by name Chryseis, daughter of Chryses, priest of Apollo, had fallen to the share of
Agamemnon. Chryses came bearing the sacred emblems of his office and begged the release of his daughter. Agamemnon refused. Thereupon Chryses implored Apollo to afflict the Greeks till they should be forced to yield their prey. Apollo granted the prayer of his priest and sent such pestilence upon the Grecian camp, that a council was called to deliberate how to allay the wrath of the gods and avert the plague. Achilles boldly charged the misfortunes upon Agamemnon as caused by his withholding Chryseis. Agamemnon, in anger, consented, thereupon, to relinquish his captive, but demanded that Achilles should yield to him in her stead Brisers, a maiden who had fallen to that hero's share in the division of the spoil. Achilles submitted, but declared that he would take no further part in the war, -- withdrew his forces from the general camp and avowed his intention of returning to Greece.
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