The Heralds Approach Achilles (1.318-44)

ὣς οἳ μὲν τὰ πένοντο κατὰ στρατόν: οὐδ' Ἀγαμέμνων
λῆγ' ἔριδος τὴν πρῶτον ἐπηπείλησ' Ἀχιλῆϊ,
ἀλλ' ὅ γε Ταλθύβιόν τε καὶ Εὐρυβάτην προσέειπε, [320]
τώ οἱ ἔσαν κήρυκε καὶ ὀτρηρὼ θεράποντε:
ἔρχεσθον κλισίην Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος:
χειρὸς ἑλόντ' ἀγέμεν Βρισηί̈δα καλλιπάρῃον:
εἰ δέ κε μὴ δώῃσιν ἐγὼ δέ κεν αὐτὸς ἕλωμαι
ἐλθὼν σὺν πλεόνεσσι: τό οἱ καὶ ῥίγιον ἔσται. [325]
ὣς εἰπὼν προῒει, κρατερὸν δ' ἐπὶ μῦθον ἔτελλε:
τὼ δ' ἀέκοντε βάτην παρὰ θῖν' ἁλὸς ἀτρυγέτοιο,
Μυρμιδόνων δ' ἐπί τε κλισίας καὶ νῆας ἱκέσθην,
τὸν δ' εὗρον παρά τε κλισίῃ καὶ νηῒ μελαίνῃ
ἥμενον: οὐδ' ἄρα τώ γε ἰδὼν γήθησεν Ἀχιλλεύς. [330]
τὼ μὲν ταρβήσαντε καὶ αἰδομένω βασιλῆα
στήτην, οὐδέ τί μιν προσεφώνεον οὐδ' ἐρέοντο:
αὐτὰρ ὃ ἔγνω ᾗσιν ἐνὶ φρεσὶ φώνησέν τε:
χαίρετε κήρυκες Διὸς ἄγγελοι ἠδὲ καὶ ἀνδρῶν,
ἆσσον ἴτ': οὔ τί μοι ὔμμες ἐπαίτιοι ἀλλ' Ἀγαμέμνων, [335]
ὃ σφῶῒ προῒει Βρισηῒδος εἵνεκα κούρης.
ἀλλ' ἄγε διογενὲς Πατρόκλεες ἔξαγε κούρην
καί σφωῒν δὸς ἄγειν: τὼ δ' αὐτὼ μάρτυροι ἔστων
πρός τε θεῶν μακάρων πρός τε θνητῶν ἀνθρώπων
καὶ πρὸς τοῦ βασιλῆος ἀπηνέος εἴ ποτε δ' αὖτε [340]
χρειὼ ἐμεῖο γένηται ἀεικέα λοιγὸν ἀμῦναι
τοῖς ἄλλοις: ἦ γὰρ ὅ γ' ὀλοιῇσι φρεσὶ θύει,
οὐδέ τι οἶδε νοῆσαι ἅμα πρόσσω καὶ ὀπίσσω,
ὅππως οἱ παρὰ νηυσὶ σόοι μαχέοιντο Ἀχαιοί.


Translation:

So the men labored away throughout the army, but Agamemnon
dwelt on the quarrel, dwelt on the threats he’d made,
and he called to Talthybios and Eurybates,
his two heralds—nimble attendants—and said,

Go now to the camp of Peleus’s son, Achilles.
Seize lovely Briseis and bring her here.
If he refuses, I’ll go there myself with men at my back
and take her—all the more bitter for him.

So he sent them forth with that harsh order,
and unwilling they went along the shore of the barren sea
until they reached the camp of the Myrmidons.
Him they found by his tent and his black ship,
sitting there. Achilles was not pleased at all to see them.
The two just stood there, fearful and awed by his kingliness,
and neither one dared to speak or to question him.
But he recognized them and knew them well, and so he said,

Greetings you heralds, messengers of Zeus and of mankind—
come closer. I don’t blame you at all—I blame Agamemnon,
he who sent you two here for the girl, Briseis.
Come now, noble Patroclus, bring out the girl
and give her to them to lead away. But you two must bear witness
before the blessed gods and mortal men,
and before the harsh king as well, if ever again
I am needed to ward off wretched ruin
from the rest, for truly he rages with deadly thoughts
and refuses to think about what’s behind or still to come—
about how the Achaeans might safely defend their ships.


Comments:
In the drafting process, it is always liberating to move from the more literal to the more freeform stage of translation. Since I have been trained as a classicist, my instinct while working on a translation is always to worry about literal accuracy. The first draft that I put on paper is like the kind of translation I used to turn in for Greek exams: it goes strictly line by line, it roughly preserves the word order of the Greek, and it does not get creative with synonyms and approximations. Needless to say, this first draft has no aesthetic value. Where I am most challenged and where I most enjoy myself (and here the appeal is to my background as a comparatist) is in working from that draft to produce something that sounds good to me in English. There is great pleasure in finding solutions to the awkward expressions of the first draft, especially when those solutions manage to capture not just the essential meaning of the Greek text but also some of its poetic qualities--even if in analogous rather than exact form. One example of such a solution in this passage is actually the first/second line, which I ended up translating as "but Agamemnon / dwelt on the quarrel, dwelt on the threats he’d made." Repeating the verb dwelt (the main verb in the Greek is not repeated) allowed me to capture the basic meaning and at the same time to add a bit of emphasis that I think is in keeping with the tenor of the passage in Greek.