The Baneful Dream Visits Agamemnon (2.16-34)

ὣς φάτο, βῆ δ' ἄρ' ὄνειρος ἐπεὶ τὸν μῦθον ἄκουσε:
καρπαλίμως δ' ἵκανε θοὰς ἐπὶ νῆας Ἀχαιῶν,
βῆ δ' ἄρ' ἐπ' Ἀτρεί̈δην Ἀγαμέμνονα: τὸν δὲ κίχανεν
εὕδοντ' ἐν κλισίῃ, περὶ δ' ἀμβρόσιος κέχυθ' ὕπνος.
στῆ δ' ἄρ' ὑπὲρ κεφαλῆς Νηληί̈ῳ υἷι ἐοικώς 20
Νέστορι, τόν ῥα μάλιστα γερόντων τῖ' Ἀγαμέμνων:
τῷ μιν ἐεισάμενος προσεφώνεε θεῖος ὄνειρος:
εὕδεις Ἀτρέος υἱὲ δαί̈φρονος ἱπποδάμοιο:
οὐ χρὴ παννύχιον εὕδειν βουληφόρον ἄνδρα
ᾧ λαοί τ' ἐπιτετράφαται καὶ τόσσα μέμηλε: 25
νῦν δ' ἐμέθεν ξύνες ὦκα: Διὸς δέ τοι ἄγγελός εἰμι,
ὃς σεῦ ἄνευθεν ἐὼν μέγα κήδεται ἠδ' ἐλεαίρει.
θωρῆξαί σε κέλευσε κάρη κομόωντας Ἀχαιοὺς
πανσυδίῃ: νῦν γάρ κεν ἕλοις πόλιν εὐρυάγυιαν
Τρώων: οὐ γὰρ ἔτ' ἀμφὶς Ὀλύμπια δώματ' ἔχοντες 30
ἀθάνατοι φράζονται: ἐπέγναμψεν γὰρ ἅπαντας
Ἥρη λισσομένη, Τρώεσσι δὲ κήδε' ἐφῆπται
ἐκ Διός: ἀλλὰ σὺ σῇσιν ἔχε φρεσί, μηδέ σε λήθη
αἱρείτω εὖτ' ἄν σε μελίφρων ὕπνος ἀνήῃ.

Translation:
At that the dream took flight and quickly reached
the Achaean’s swift ships. There he sought the son
of Atreus and found him in his tent
where sleep, ambrosial sleep, had overwhelmed him.
The dream stood by his head and took the form
of Nestor, son of Neleus, the man
whom Agamemnon honored most of all
the older men. The godly dream then spoke:

You slumber, son of Atreus. And yet
a counsel-bearing man cannot afford
to sleep all through the night, a man to whom
the host commits itself, a man who has
so many cares. Now hear what I’ve to say.
I come as messenger from Zeus, who, though
he’s far away, cares for and pities you.
He urges and commands you gird yourself
and all the long-haired Greeks for war upon
the instant, for now is when you might take
the citadel of Troy. The deathless gods
who hold Olympus do not still think two ways
about it—Hera has entreated them
and bent them to her will. Troy’s doom is sealed
by Zeus. So keep this in your thoughts and don’t
forget when honey-minded sleep lets go.

Comments:
Now that the ACLA conference is behind me and the semester is almost over, I look forward to resuming a regular schedule of postings. So from here on out I’ll post at least three times per week, and hope to complete books 2 and 3 over the summer.

Of note in this brief section is the repetition of Zeus’s words (2.11-15) in 28-32. This required only a minor shift in pronouns. More interesting is how the dream adds that it is “by Zeus” that “Troy’s doom is sealed.” To keep everything parallel, I had to go back to my earlier translation of line 15 (“She’s sealed Troy’s doom”) and make it into a passive construction so that the agent, Zeus, could be accommodated in the repetition of the passage. This actually worked out very well because the Greek construction is passive—for some reason I had made it active with Hera the subject, which was wrong. So a bit of translating serendipity.