Thersites’ Rant (2.11-42)

ἄλλοι μέν ῥ' ἕζοντο, ἐρήτυθεν δὲ καθ' ἕδρας:
Θερσίτης δ' ἔτι μοῦνος ἀμετροεπὴς ἐκολῴα,
ὃς ἔπεα φρεσὶν ᾗσιν ἄκοσμά τε πολλά τε ᾔδη
μάψ, ἀτὰρ οὐ κατὰ κόσμον, ἐριζέμεναι βασιλεῦσιν,
ἀλλ' ὅ τι οἱ εἴσαιτο γελοίïον Ἀργείοισιν [215]
ἔμμεναι: αἴσχιστος δὲ ἀνὴρ ὑπὸ Ἴλιον ἦλθε:
φολκὸς ἔην, χωλὸς δ' ἕτερον πόδα: τὼ δέ οἱ ὤμω
κυρτὼ ἐπὶ στῆθος συνοχωκότε: αὐτὰρ ὕπερθε
φοξὸς ἔην κεφαλήν, ψεδνὴ δ' ἐπενήνοθε λάχνη.
ἔχθιστος δ' Ἀχιλῆï μάλιστ' ἦν ἠδ' Ὀδυσῆï: [220]
τὼ γὰρ νεικείεσκε: τότ' αὖτ' Ἀγαμέμνονι δίῳ
ὀξέα κεκλήγων λέγ' ὀνείδεα: τῷ δ' ἄρ' Ἀχαιοὶ
ἐκπάγλως κοτέοντο νεμέσσηθέν τ' ἐνὶ θυμῷ.
αὐτὰρ ὃ μακρὰ βοῶν Ἀγαμέμνονα νείκεε μύθῳ:
Ἀτρεΐδη τέο δ' αὖτ' ἐπιμέμφεαι ἠδὲ χατίζεις; [225]
πλεῖαί τοι χαλκοῦ κλισίαι, πολλαὶ δὲ γυναῖκες
εἰσὶν ἐνὶ κλισίῃς ἐξαίρετοι, ἅς τοι Ἀχαιοὶ
πρωτίστῳ δίδομεν εὖτ' ἂν πτολίεθρον ἕλωμεν.
ἦ ἔτι καὶ χρυσοῦ ἐπιδεύεαι, ὅν κέ τις οἴσει
Τρώων ἱπποδάμων ἐξ Ἰλίου υἷος ἄποινα, [230]
ὅν κεν ἐγὼ δήσας ἀγάγω ἢ ἄλλος Ἀχαιῶν,
ἠὲ γυναῖκα νέην, ἵνα μίσγεαι ἐν φιλότητι,
ἥν τ' αὐτὸς ἀπονόσφι κατίσχεαι; οὐ μὲν ἔοικεν
ἀρχὸν ἐόντα κακῶν ἐπιβασκέμεν υἷας Ἀχαιῶν.
ὦ πέπονες κάκ' ἐλέγχε' Ἀχαιΐδες οὐκέτ' Ἀχαιοὶ [235]
οἴκαδέ περ σὺν νηυσὶ νεώμεθα, τόνδε δ' ἐῶμεν
αὐτοῦ ἐνὶ Τροίῃ γέρα πεσσέμεν, ὄφρα ἴδηται
ἤ ῥά τί οἱ χἠμεῖς προσαμύνομεν ἦε καὶ οὐκί:
ὃς καὶ νῦν Ἀχιλῆα ἕο μέγ' ἀμείνονα φῶτα
ἠτίμησεν: ἑλὼν γὰρ ἔχει γέρας αὐτὸς ἀπούρας. [240]
ἀλλὰ μάλ' οὐκ Ἀχιλῆï χόλος φρεσίν, ἀλλὰ μεθήμων:
ἦ γὰρ ἂν Ἀτρεΐδη νῦν ὕστατα λωβήσαιο:

Translation
Then all the other men sat down
except Thersites—he alone
bawled on, spilling words haphazardly.
He’d mastered every sort of fractious speech,
rash words, disordered sentences—
adept at giving hell to kings
and always on the lookout for
some way to make the Argives laugh.
He was the most repulsive man
who came to Troy: one foot lame
and dragged behind, both shoulders hunched,
a sunken chest, and topping all
a pointed head with patchwork hair.
Achilles and Odysseus despised
him most of all because he wrangled
with them both. But now he spoke against
godlike Agamemnon, yelling out
reproaches and abuse, although
the troops were angry and resented him.
But shouting from afar, the man
denounced Agamemnon with a speech:

So tell us, son of Atreus,
what is it now you lack and blame us for?
Your tents are filled with bronze and droves
of first-rate women, ones we give to you
first, anytime we take some citadel.
Or do you yet lack gold, like what
some stallion-breaking Trojan’s son
might fetch from Troy for his release—
a man whom I or any other Greek
might bind and lead as prisoner?
Or seek you now a tender girl
to mingle with, to mount in lust,
to hoard apart for just yourself?
It’s wrong, although you rule, to bring
Achaea’s sons to ruin thus.
You cowards! Disgraces! Achaean girls—
no more Achaean men! Let us sail
for home and leave him here at Troy
to mull his prizes over by himself,
so he might see if we’re some help to him
or not, this man who’s just now done
a great dishonor to Achilles,
a better man than him by far—
he took his prize, seizing it himself.
Achilles, though, was lax and had no gall,
for otherwise, son of Atreus,
that outrage would have been your very last.

Comments
I’ve worked on this section for 3 days now and am still unsatisfied with it, especially the narrative leading up to the speech, especially lines 211-15. For some reason those lines either emerge as too iambic and sing-songy or as too dissonant and raw. I’ve put them through a lot of drafts to get something that basically maintains the iambic flow but without doing so too obviously. But still I don’t have it. This is one to post as is and then come back to from time to time until one day I get lucky and wrestle with it when my mind is just right to capture the tone. I am happy though with the speech itself. I found a lot of felicitous solutions to difficult words, and I think I caught the tone pretty closely.