The Troops Gather for Agamemnon (2.84-109)

ὣς ἄρα φωνήσας βουλῆς ἐξῆρχε νέεσθαι,
οἳ δ' ἐπανέστησαν πείθοντό τε ποιμένι λαῶν [85]
σκηπτοῦχοι βασιλῆες: ἐπεσσεύοντο δὲ λαοί.
ἠύΐτε ἔθνεα εἶσι μελισσάων ἁδινάων
πέτρης ἐκ γλαφυρῆς αἰεὶ νέον ἐρχομενάων,
βοτρυδὸν δὲ πέτονται ἐπ' ἄνθεσιν εἰαρινοῖσιν:
αἳ μέν τ' ἔνθα ἅλις πεποτήαται, αἳ δέ τε ἔνθα: [90]
ὣς τῶν ἔθνεα πολλὰ νεῶν ἄπο καὶ κλισιάων
ἠïόνος προπάροιθε βαθείης ἐστιχόωντο
ἰλαδὸν εἰς ἀγορήν: μετὰ δέ σφισιν ὄσσα δεδήει
ὀτρύνουσ' ἰέναι Διὸς ἄγγελος: οἳ δ' ἀγέροντο.
τετρήχει δ' ἀγορή, ὑπὸ δὲ στεναχίζετο γαῖα [95]
λαῶν ἱζόντων, ὅμαδος δ' ἦν: ἐννέα δέ σφεας
κήρυκες βοόωντες ἐρήτυον, εἴ ποτ' ἀϋτῆς
σχοίατ', ἀκούσειαν δὲ διοτρεφέων βασιλήων.
σπουδῇ δ' ἕζετο λαός, ἐρήτυθεν δὲ καθ' ἕδρας
παυσάμενοι κλαγγῆς: ἀνὰ δὲ κρείων Ἀγαμέμνων [100]
ἔστη σκῆπτρον ἔχων τὸ μὲν Ἥφαιστος κάμε τεύχων.
Ἥφαιστος μὲν δῶκε Διὶ Κρονίωνι ἄνακτι,
αὐτὰρ ἄρα Ζεὺς δῶκε διακτόρῳ ἀργεïφόντῃ:
Ἑρμείας δὲ ἄναξ δῶκεν Πέλοπι πληξίππῳ,
αὐτὰρ ὃ αὖτε Πέλοψ δῶκ' Ἀτρέï ποιμένι λαῶν, [105]
Ἀτρεὺς δὲ θνῄσκων ἔλιπεν πολύαρνι Θυέστῃ,
αὐτὰρ ὃ αὖτε Θυέστ' Ἀγαμέμνονι λεῖπε φορῆναι,
πολλῇσιν νήσοισι καὶ Ἄργεï παντὶ ἀνάσσειν.
τῷ ὅ γ' ἐρεισάμενος ἔπε' Ἀργείοισι μετηύδα:

Translation
With that, he broke the council up;
the sceptre-bearing kings then stood
and left, obeying every word,
and all the host was hastened on.

As tribes of bees will issue forth
in endless swarms from hollow caves
and, clustered thick as grapes, pursue
the vernal blooms—some fly from here,
some fly from there—just so did all
the tribes of fighting men stream forth
from huts along the shore and march
in groups into the meeting grounds.

There blazed among them Rumor’s voice—
a messenger from Zeus—to urge
them on, and so they gathered there.
The place was in a tumult then—
a din arose, and the earth groaned
as they began to take their seats;
nine heralds tried to set them straight
with shouts—to make them hold their peace
and listen to the godlike kings.
In haste the troops sat down and ceased
their clamor. Agamemnon stood
and gripped his sceptre firm—the god
Hephaistos wrought and shaped it once
and gave it to the son of Kronos, Zeus,
who gave it to the guide Hermes,
the giant-slaying god, who passed
it on to bronco-breaking Pelops,
who passed it on to Atreus,
that shepherd of the troops, who when
he passed away did leave it to
Thyestes, rich in flocks of lambs,
but then Thyestes gave it to
the son of Atreus to bear,
for him to rule the many isles
and all of Argos too. He leant
on it and spoke these words to all:

Comments
I worked this passage over many times before arriving at this version, with which I’m at least satisfied if not pleased. Not sure why it gave me more trouble than usual. It’s not because here at last we have a full-blown homeric simile to deal with—in fact, that part went very well and it’s the part I’m most pleased with. There just were certain phrases that gave me lots of trouble, like much of lines 93-99. I also had difficulties, as often with the list of proper names and traditional epithets in lines 102-08. Normally, I play it loose and easy with names and epithets, figuring that if the homeric system makes its decisions based on metrical fit, so should I. For example, if the Greek has “Agamemnon,” I might choose to go with “the son of Atreus” if that iambic trimeter epithet fits my immediate versifying needs better than the trochaic dimeter proper name of Agamemnon. But in this passage, as Kirk’s commentary points out, some of these epithets are here introduced for the first time in the poem, so I didn’t want to omit them or transform them too violently.

On a broader note, the more I experiment with iambic tetrameter, the more I like it, especially because it forces me to economize, which in turn is producing—in my opinion—a tauter, more modern-sounding line. One thing I notice though is that the shorter the metrical line the greater the danger of lapsing into a sing-song style. This is because the shorter line presents one with less space in which to break from strict iambs and still recover the beat at line-end (one example of variation is the line “a din arose, and the earth groaned”). There are a couple of ways to deal with this, both of which I’m considering resorting to with greater frequency than I’ve allowed here. One is to give up the semi-strict rule of recovering the beat at line-end and allow some lines to end with downbeats (for example, the lines that end with the proper names Hermes and Pelops). A second, and perhaps even better rule is to continue aiming generally for 8 beats per line, but to allow more frequent compressions to 7 beats and extensions to 9 or even 10 beats when necessary (for example, the line “and gave it to the son of Kronos, Zeus” is a pentameter; the line “it on to bronco-breaking Pelops” is 9 beats [iambic pentamenter catalectic]). The only way to tell if these tactics will work is to try them out and see what happens.