Odysseus Harangues the Troops (2.284-332)

Ἀτρεΐδη νῦν δή σε ἄναξ ἐθέλουσιν Ἀχαιοὶ
πᾶσιν ἐλέγχιστον θέμεναι μερόπεσσι βροτοῖσιν, [285]
οὐδέ τοι ἐκτελέουσιν ὑπόσχεσιν ἥν περ ὑπέσταν
ἐνθάδ' ἔτι στείχοντες ἀπ' Ἄργεος ἱπποβότοιο
Ἴλιον ἐκπέρσαντ' εὐτείχεον ἀπονέεσθαι.
ὥς τε γὰρ ἢ παῖδες νεαροὶ χῆραί τε γυναῖκες
ἀλλήλοισιν ὀδύρονται οἶκον δὲ νέεσθαι. [290]
ἦ μὴν καὶ πόνος ἐστὶν ἀνιηθέντα νέεσθαι:
καὶ γάρ τίς θ' ἕνα μῆνα μένων ἀπὸ ἧς ἀλόχοιο
ἀσχαλάᾳ σὺν νηῒ πολυζύγῳ, ὅν περ ἄελλαι
χειμέριαι εἰλέωσιν ὀρινομένη τε θάλασσα:
ἡμῖν δ' εἴνατός ἐστι περιτροπέων ἐνιαυτὸς [295]
ἐνθάδε μιμνόντεσσι: τὼ οὐ νεμεσίζομ' Ἀχαιοὺς
ἀσχαλάαν παρὰ νηυσὶ κορωνίσιν: ἀλλὰ καὶ ἔμπης
αἰσχρόν τοι δηρόν τε μένειν κενεόν τε νέεσθαι.
τλῆτε φίλοι, καὶ μείνατ' ἐπὶ χρόνον ὄφρα δαῶμεν
ἢ ἐτεὸν Κάλχας μαντεύεται ἦε καὶ οὐκί. [300]
εὖ γὰρ δὴ τόδε ἴδμεν ἐνὶ φρεσίν, ἐστὲ δὲ πάντες
μάρτυροι, οὓς μὴ κῆρες ἔβαν θανάτοιο φέρουσαι:
χθιζά τε καὶ πρωΐζ' ὅτ' ἐς Αὐλίδα νῆες Ἀχαιῶν
ἠγερέθοντο κακὰ Πριάμῳ καὶ Τρωσὶ φέρουσαι,
ἡμεῖς δ' ἀμφὶ περὶ κρήνην ἱεροὺς κατὰ βωμοὺς [305]
ἕρδομεν ἀθανάτοισι τεληέσσας ἑκατόμβας
καλῇ ὑπὸ πλατανίστῳ ὅθεν ῥέεν ἀγλαὸν ὕδωρ:
ἔνθ' ἐφάνη μέγα σῆμα: δράκων ἐπὶ νῶτα δαφοινὸς
σμερδαλέος, τόν ῥ' αὐτὸς Ὀλύμπιος ἧκε φόως δέ,
βωμοῦ ὑπαΐξας πρός ῥα πλατάνιστον ὄρουσεν. [310]
ἔνθα δ' ἔσαν στρουθοῖο νεοσσοί, νήπια τέκνα,
ὄζῳ ἐπ' ἀκροτάτῳ πετάλοις ὑποπεπτηῶτες
ὀκτώ, ἀτὰρ μήτηρ ἐνάτη ἦν ἣ τέκε τέκνα:
ἔνθ' ὅ γε τοὺς ἐλεεινὰ κατήσθιε τετριγῶτας:
μήτηρ δ' ἀμφεποτᾶτο ὀδυρομένη φίλα τέκνα: [315]
τὴν δ' ἐλελιξάμενος πτέρυγος λάβεν ἀμφιαχυῖαν.
αὐτὰρ ἐπεὶ κατὰ τέκνα φάγε στρουθοῖο καὶ αὐτήν,
τὸν μὲν ἀΐζηλον θῆκεν θεὸς ὅς περ ἔφηνε:
[λᾶαν γάρ μιν ἔθηκε Κρόνου πάïς ἀγκυλομήτεω:]
ἡμεῖς δ' ἑσταότες θαυμάζομεν οἷον ἐτύχθη. [320]
ὡς οὖν δεινὰ πέλωρα θεῶν εἰσῆλθ' ἑκατόμβας,
Κάλχας δ' αὐτίκ' ἔπειτα θεοπροπέων ἀγόρευε:
τίπτ' ἄνεῳ ἐγένεσθε κάρη κομόωντες Ἀχαιοί;
ἡμῖν μὲν τόδ' ἔφηνε τέρας μέγα μητίετα Ζεὺς
ὄψιμον ὀψιτέλεστον, ὅου κλέος οὔ ποτ' ὀλεῖται. [325]
ὡς οὗτος κατὰ τέκνα φάγε στρουθοῖο καὶ αὐτὴν
ὀκτώ, ἀτὰρ μήτηρ ἐνάτη ἦν ἣ τέκε τέκνα,
ὣς ἡμεῖς τοσσαῦτ' ἔτεα πτολεμίξομεν αὖθι,
τῷ δεκάτῳ δὲ πόλιν αἱρήσομεν εὐρυάγυιαν.
κεῖνος τὼς ἀγόρευε: τὰ δὴ νῦν πάντα τελεῖται. [330]
ἀλλ' ἄγε μίμνετε πάντες ἐϋκνήμιδες Ἀχαιοὶ
αὐτοῦ εἰς ὅ κεν ἄστυ μέγα Πριάμοιο ἕλωμεν.

Translation
Son of Atreus, now indeed, my king,
the Greeks would like to make you most disgraced
of all mankind, and they do not fulfill
for you the promise that they made
when they were poised to leave the horse-rich lands
of Argos: then they swore they’d not return
until they’d sacked the citadel of Troy.
But now like little boys and widowed wives
they weep to one another over their
return to home. Yet truly that would be
a labor too, returning home distressed
and empty-handed. A man who spends
a month abroad in ships, without his wife,
will start to fret—a man whom wintry winds
and stormy seas pin down—but we have seen
nine full years go round while we stay here;
I therefore cannot blame the Greeks
for fretting by their curved ships.
Endure, my friends, and stay the course
so we may know if Kalchas’ prophecies
are true or false. For this we know for sure
and witnessed for ourselves—all those
whom Death has yet to come and claim:
yesterday or the day before, our ships
all came together there at Aulis
to carry woe to Priam and the Trojans;
upon the altars circling the spring,
beneath the lovely sycamore
where shining waters flow, we sacrificed
to the deathless gods perfect hekatombs,
and there a potent sign appeared:
a serpent with a blood-red back—
a fearful sight, sent by Zeus himself—
came darting out beneath the altar
and swiftly climbed the sycamore;
up there upon the highest branch,
a sparrow’s nestlings perched, unfledged,
all huddling beneath the leaves:
eight there were and nine with her who bore them.
And then we saw a piteous sight:
the serpent ate them as they squeaked;
their mother flew about and cried
for her beloved brood; the serpent coiled
and seized the shrieking bird mid-flight.
But when it swallowed her with all her young,
the god who’d made it seen made it disappear,
and we stood rooted, marvelling at all.
When the dreadful creatures had encroached
upon the holy hekatombs, Kalchas
quickly prophesied and said to all:
“Long-haired Achaeans, why so silent now?
Wise Zeus reveals to us this potent sign,
arriving late and late to be fulfilled,
the fame of which will never perish.
Just as the serpent swallowed down
the sparrow’s brood along with her herself—
eight there were and nine with her who bore them—
just so will we for equal years
do battle here, but in the tenth
we’ll take the broad-streeted citadel.”
That’s what he said, and now it comes to pass.
So let us stay, bronze-greaved Achaean men,
until we capture Priam’s mighty town.

Comments
This was one of the longest passages that I have translated as a single entry so far, but I wanted to work on it as a coherent whole so as to focus on its rhythm and its overall feel. And while there were plenty of difficulties (some of which remain only provisionally resolved), I think on the whole this rendering is a good one. I’ve kept it quite close to the original, but I’ve also maintained a good iambic flow that’s modern without being overly casual or colloquial. Some of it, especially the first few lines, is still more stiff and artificial-sounding than I would like, but the best parts of the speech have the right flow. In particular, I think the description of the “potent sign” at Aulis—the remembrance of the snake eating the birds—has the kind of rhythm and tautness I’m always trying to achieve.

Given the length of this section, there are many specific points and problems I could discuss, but I’ll just mention the most significant one, the translation of lines 317-20. Although I’m normally following the text found in Monro and Allen’s OCT edition, here I’ve decided to go with the reading originally proposed by Aristarchus and defended by G.S. Kirk in his commentary. The OCT prints these 4 lines as:

αὐτὰρ ἐπεὶ κατὰ τέκνα φάγε στρουθοῖο καὶ αὐτήν,
τὸν μὲν ἀρíζηλον θῆκεν θεὸς ὅς περ ἔφηνε:
λᾶαν γάρ μιν ἔθηκε Κρόνου πάïς ἀγκυλομήτεω:
ἡμεῖς δ' ἑσταότες θαυμάζομεν οἷον ἐτύχθη.

These could be translated as:

But when it swallowed her with all her young,
the god who’d made it seen made it salient:
the son of crooked-minded Kronos, Zeus,
turned it into stone, and we stood rooted,
marvelling at what had come to pass.

This reading gets 317 nearly word-for-word (with the exception of going with the generic “her” instead of the specific “of the sparrow,” in order to get the line in iambic pentameter); it gets 318 very closely, and translates the critical word ἀρíζηλον as “salient,” which is close to the most literal rendering “very conspicuous”); it retains line 319 and gets it very closely (though the epithet for Zeus is long enough that it takes me a line and a half to get the whole line into English); it gets 320 quite literally as well, also taking a line and a half in English. On the whole I think this makes for a good translation of these 4 lines in Greek. But the problem is the sense. I agree with Kirk (and the preceding commentators on whom he is drawing) that the image itself doesn’t make a whole lot of sense—the image of the snake turned to stone (in the tree?). Nor does it make much sense to say “the god who’d made it seen made it salient” or more literally “it was made conspicuous by the very god who’d made it appear.” One can make this work, sure: it means that the god first caused the snake to appear and then, by turning it to stone, made it even more conspicuous. But Kirk suggests we go with Aristarchus’s reading of ἀΐζηλον for ἀρíζηλον, which would give something like “invisible” instead of “very conspicuous.” What I like about this is that, besides the fact that it makes the image more sensible (the snake is made to disappear after it swallows the birds rather than being turned to stone, and we can picture the crowd left gaping at the portent that’s disappeared into thin air), it creates an antithesis between ἔφηνε (“made it appear”) and ἀΐζηλον θῆκεν (“made it invisible”). We all know how much Homer likes antitheses, and this one is particularly nice because it creates a rhetorically and poetically balanced line: τὸν μὲν ἀΐζηλον θῆκεν θεὸς ὅς περ ἔφηνε, which I give as “the god who’d made it seen made it disappear.” And then I also follow Kirk and Aristarchus in dropping line 319 (λᾶαν γάρ μιν ἔθηκε Κρόνου πάïς ἀγκυλομήτεω). I feel this makes for a simpler and much more satisfactory sequence of ideas and images. So I end up with:

αὐτὰρ ἐπεὶ κατὰ τέκνα φάγε στρουθοῖο καὶ αὐτήν,
τὸν μὲν ἀΐζηλον θῆκεν θεὸς ὅς περ ἔφηνε:
ἡμεῖς δ' ἑσταότες θαυμάζομεν οἷον ἐτύχθη.

But when it swallowed her with all her young,
the god who’d made it seen made it disappear,
and we stood rooted, marvelling at all.

I admit that I am not much of a textual editor myself, so my decision to go with the alternate reading in line 318 and to omit line 319 is based not on the kind of intricate knowledge of manuscripts, transmission practices, etc that a true editor must possess but rather on a largely intuitive sense of which works better poetically. Thin ice, no doubt, but then again, my translation is meant to be a place of experimentation.