Agamemnon Tests the Troops (2.110-41)

ὦ φίλοι ἥρωες Δαναοὶ θεράποντες Ἄρηος [110]
Ζεύς με μέγα Κρονίδης ἄτῃ ἐνέδησε βαρείῃ,
σχέτλιος, ὃς πρὶν μέν μοι ὑπέσχετο καὶ κατένευσεν
Ἴλιον ἐκπέρσαντ' εὐτείχεον ἀπονέεσθαι,
νῦν δὲ κακὴν ἀπάτην βουλεύσατο, καί με κελεύει
δυσκλέα Ἄργος ἱκέσθαι, ἐπεὶ πολὺν ὤλεσα λαόν. [115]
οὕτω που Διὶ μέλλει ὑπερμενέï φίλον εἶναι,
ὃς δὴ πολλάων πολίων κατέλυσε κάρηνα
ἠδ' ἔτι καὶ λύσει: τοῦ γὰρ κράτος ἐστὶ μέγιστον.
αἰσχρὸν γὰρ τόδε γ' ἐστὶ καὶ ἐσσομένοισι πυθέσθαι
μὰψ οὕτω τοιόνδε τοσόνδε τε λαὸν Ἀχαιῶν [120]
ἄπρηκτον πόλεμον πολεμίζειν ἠδὲ μάχεσθαι
ἀνδράσι παυροτέροισι, τέλος δ' οὔ πώ τι πέφανται:
εἴ περ γάρ κ' ἐθέλοιμεν Ἀχαιοί τε Τρῶές τε
ὅρκια πιστὰ ταμόντες ἀριθμηθήμεναι ἄμφω,
Τρῶας μὲν λέξασθαι ἐφέστιοι ὅσσοι ἔασιν, [125]
ἡμεῖς δ' ἐς δεκάδας διακοσμηθεῖμεν Ἀχαιοί,
Τρώων δ' ἄνδρα ἕκαστοι ἑλοίμεθα οἰνοχοεύειν,
πολλαί κεν δεκάδες δευοίατο οἰνοχόοιο.
τόσσον ἐγώ φημι πλέας ἔμμεναι υἷας Ἀχαιῶν
Τρώων, οἳ ναίουσι κατὰ πτόλιν: ἀλλ' ἐπίκουροι [130]
πολλέων ἐκ πολίων ἐγχέσπαλοι ἄνδρες ἔασιν,
οἵ με μέγα πλάζουσι καὶ οὐκ εἰῶσ' ἐθέλοντα
Ἰλίου ἐκπέρσαι εὖ ναιόμενον πτολίεθρον.
ἐννέα δὴ βεβάασι Διὸς μεγάλου ἐνιαυτοί,
καὶ δὴ δοῦρα σέσηπε νεῶν καὶ σπάρτα λέλυνται: [135]
αἳ δέ που ἡμέτεραί τ' ἄλοχοι καὶ νήπια τέκνα
εἵατ' ἐνὶ μεγάροις ποτιδέγμεναι: ἄμμι δὲ ἔργον
αὔτως ἀκράαντον οὗ εἵνεκα δεῦρ' ἱκόμεσθα.
ἀλλ' ἄγεθ' ὡς ἂν ἐγὼ εἴπω πειθώμεθα πάντες:
φεύγωμεν σὺν νηυσὶ φίλην ἐς πατρίδα γαῖαν: [140]
οὐ γὰρ ἔτι Τροίην αἱρήσομεν εὐρυάγυιαν.

Translation
My dear Danaan fighting men,
squires to Ares: Zeus the son
of Kronos has entangled me
in utter, god-sent folly—for shame!
Before, he promised me—and sealed
it with a nod—that I would sack
the Trojan citadel and then
return to home, but now he’s done
a dirty trick: he orders me
to head for Argos, to return
ill-famed since many troops have died.
This plan, it seems, is dear to Zeus,
who’s ruined countless cities now,
and will destroy still more—his force
is mightiest. And this will be
a shame for later men to learn—
that thus in vain a host so strong,
so great, should wage a fruitless war
against a smaller force and still
no end in sight. For if the Greeks
and Trojans, under oath, should wish
to calculate their troops, then, when all
the native Trojans had been counted up,
and we Achaeans grouped ourselves
in tens and every group of ten
had took a Trojan man to pour
them wine, then—even then—you’d see
that many groups of ten would lack
a man to pour them wine. And that,
I say, is how much greater this
Achaean force is when it’s compared
to theirs—I mean the troops that live
in Troy itself, for when it comes
to allies, there are warriors
from countless towns who fiercely drive
me back and thwart me in my wish
to sack the well-built citadel
of Troy. And now, by Zeus, nine years
have passed, the timbers of the ships
have rot, the cables lie unloosed,
our wives and helpless children sit
and wait for us at home. In vain
we labor here—it’s time we head
for home. So come, do as I say,
and be persuaded now—let’s board
the ships and set our sails for our
beloved fatherland, since now
we’ll never take broad-streeted Troy.

Comments
The translation of this speech came to me relatively fast this morning over the course of about two hours. For whatever reason—and it’s not the kind of thing that happens very often—I woke up at 5am with translation on my mind, so I set straight to work on it. One thing worth mentioning here is that I’m noticing the tetrameter form definitely tends toward greater rigidity than pentameters do. Especially I notice that there is a strong natural tendency toward a strong caesura right in the middle of the line; this kind of symmetry is unpleasant if it occurs too often. So in these lines I worked to avoid it much of the time. I like this speech a lot though with all its interjections and its tortuous, meandering syntax (hence my frequent resort to the m-dash).