Achilles Fills Thetis In (1.364-92)

τὴν δὲ βαρὺ στενάχων προσέφη πόδας ὠκὺς Ἀχιλλεύς:
οἶσθα: τί ἤ τοι ταῦτα ἰδυίῃ πάντ' ἀγορεύω; [365]
ᾠχόμεθ' ἐς Θήβην ἱερὴν πόλιν Ἠετίωνος,
τὴν δὲ διεπράθομέν τε καὶ ἤγομεν ἐνθάδε πάντα:
καὶ τὰ μὲν εὖ δάσσαντο μετὰ σφίσιν υἷες Ἀχαιῶν,
ἐκ δ' ἕλον Ἀτρεί̈δῃ Χρυσηί̈δα καλλιπάρῃον.
Χρύσης δ' αὖθ' ἱερεὺς ἑκατηβόλου Ἀπόλλωνος [370]
ἦλθε θοὰς ἐπὶ νῆας Ἀχαιῶν χαλκοχιτώνων
λυσόμενός τε θύγατρα φέρων τ' ἀπερείσι' ἄποινα,
στέμματ' ἔχων ἐν χερσὶν ἑκηβόλου Ἀπόλλωνος
χρυσέῳ ἀνὰ σκήπτρῳ, καὶ λίσσετο πάντας Ἀχαιούς,
Ἀτρεί̈δα δὲ μάλιστα δύω κοσμήτορε λαῶν. [375]
ἔνθ' ἄλλοι μὲν πάντες ἐπευφήμησαν Ἀχαιοὶ
αἰδεῖσθαί θ' ἱερῆα καὶ ἀγλαὰ δέχθαι ἄποινα:
ἀλλ' οὐκ Ἀτρεί̈δῃ Ἀγαμέμνονι ἥνδανε θυμῷ,
ἀλλὰ κακῶς ἀφίει, κρατερὸν δ' ἐπὶ μῦθον ἔτελλε:
χωόμενος δ' ὁ γέρων πάλιν ᾤχετο: τοῖο δ' Ἀπόλλων [380]
εὐξαμένου ἤκουσεν, ἐπεὶ μάλα οἱ φίλος ἦεν,
ἧκε δ' ἐπ' Ἀργείοισι κακὸν βέλος: οἳ δέ νυ λαοὶ
θνῇσκον ἐπασσύτεροι, τὰ δ' ἐπῴχετο κῆλα θεοῖο
πάντῃ ἀνὰ στρατὸν εὐρὺν Ἀχαιῶν: ἄμμι δὲ μάντις
εὖ εἰδὼς ἀγόρευε θεοπροπίας ἑκάτοιο. [385]
αὐτίκ' ἐγὼ πρῶτος κελόμην θεὸν ἱλάσκεσθαι:
Ἀτρεΐωνα δ' ἔπειτα χόλος λάβεν, αἶψα δ' ἀναστὰς
ἠπείλησεν μῦθον ὃ δὴ τετελεσμένος ἐστί:
τὴν μὲν γὰρ σὺν νηΐ θοῇ ἑλίκωπες Ἀχαιοὶ
ἐς Χρύσην πέμπουσιν, ἄγουσι δὲ δῶρα ἄνακτι: [390]
τὴν δὲ νέον κλισίηθεν ἔβαν κήρυκες ἄγοντες
κούρην Βρισῆος τήν μοι δόσαν υἷες Ἀχαιῶν.


Translation:
With a deep groan, swift-footed Achilles said to her,

You know it all—why must I retell it to you?
It started with Thebe, Eetion’s sacred city—
we went and destroyed it and brought all its wealth here.
The sons of Achaea divided the goods among themselves
and chose out lovelycheeked Chryseis for the son of Atreus.
But then Chryses, priest of the Farshooter Apollo,
came right to the swift ships of the bronzeclad Achaeans
looking to free his daughter, bringing a boundless ransom
and bearing in his hands a golden staff wrapped
with the sacred bands of the Farshooter Apollo.
He begged all the Achaeans but most of all
the two sons of Atreus, the commanders of the host.
Then all the Achaeans shouted their approval—
to respect the priest and take the shining ransom,
but this galled Atreus’s son Agamemnon, irked his heart,
so he rudely drove the man away with harsh threats.
The old man went away angry, and Apollo
heeded his prayers—he loves the man dearly—
and he let fly his terrible shafts at the Argives; and the god’s
arrows struck throughout the broad Achaean army, and the men
were dying one on top of the other, But then a seer
who knows clearly the prophecies of the Farshooter spoke to us.
And I was the first to urge that we appease the god,
but then anger overcame the son of Atreus, and he stood up
and made a threat that has now been accomplished:
the one girl the darkeyed Achaeans have sent in a swift ship
back to Chryse, along with gifts for the Farshooter;
but the heralds just now came and took the other girl from my tent—
the daughter of Briseus, the girl the sons of Achaea gave me.


Comments:
I think this passage contains the first substantial repetition in the Iliad: lines 370-79 largely repeat lines 12-16 and 22-25. Since I have been out of action since Wednesday due to surgery and am finding it difficult to work today, I was pleased to cut and paste those earlier lines in here. This, of course, is just what Homer would have done had he been using a word processor to compose. The narrative at this point provides a natural opportunity to import earlier, established lines because Homer has Achilles retell what Homer himself has already told. Apparently there is no aesthetic bias against such a close-range repetition. In fact, it could be argued that these kinds of repetitions of short passages in close proximity to each other point to an appreciation of poetic recycling. Even for a modern reader it can be enjoyable to witness how the poet transforms the material first given through 3rd-person narration (action that was described to us as an unfolding event) into a report given through the 1st-person perspective of one of the characters involved in the event. We get to hear Achilles construct a narrative explanation of the chain of cause and effect that has led him to summon Thetis.