Sacrifices and Prayers (2.394-418)

ὣς ἔφατ', Ἀργεῖοι δὲ μέγ' ἴαχον ὡς ὅτε κῦμα
ἀκτῇ ἐφ' ὑψηλῇ, ὅτε κινήσῃ Νότος ἐλθών, [395]
προβλῆτι σκοπέλῳ: τὸν δ' οὔ ποτε κύματα λείπει
παντοίων ἀνέμων, ὅτ' ἂν ἔνθ' ἢ ἔνθα γένωνται.
ἀνστάντες δ' ὀρέοντο κεδασθέντες κατὰ νῆας,
κάπνισσάν τε κατὰ κλισίας, καὶ δεῖπνον ἕλοντο.
ἄλλος δ' ἄλλῳ ἔρεζε θεῶν αἰειγενετάων [400]
εὐχόμενος θάνατόν τε φυγεῖν καὶ μῶλον Ἄρηος.
αὐτὰρ ὃ βοῦν ἱέρευσε ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν Ἀγαμέμνων
πίονα πενταέτηρον ὑπερμενέï Κρονίωνι,
κίκλησκεν δὲ γέροντας ἀριστῆας Παναχαιῶν,
Νέστορα μὲν πρώτιστα καὶ Ἰδομενῆα ἄνακτα, [405]
αὐτὰρ ἔπειτ' Αἴαντε δύω καὶ Τυδέος υἱόν,
ἕκτον δ' αὖτ' Ὀδυσῆα Διὶ μῆτιν ἀτάλαντον.
αὐτόματος δέ οἱ ἦλθε βοὴν ἀγαθὸς Μενέλαος:
ᾔδεε γὰρ κατὰ θυμὸν ἀδελφεὸν ὡς ἐπονεῖτο.
βοῦν δὲ περιστήσαντο καὶ οὐλοχύτας ἀνέλοντο: [410]
τοῖσιν δ' εὐχόμενος μετέφη κρείων Ἀγαμέμνων:
Ζεῦ κύδιστε μέγιστε κελαινεφὲς αἰθέρι ναίων
μὴ πρὶν ἐπ' ἠέλιον δῦναι καὶ ἐπὶ κνέφας ἐλθεῖν
πρίν με κατὰ πρηνὲς βαλέειν Πριάμοιο μέλαθρον
αἰθαλόεν, πρῆσαι δὲ πυρὸς δηΐοιο θύρετρα, [415]
Ἑκτόρεον δὲ χιτῶνα περὶ στήθεσσι δαΐξαι
χαλκῷ ῥωγαλέον: πολέες δ' ἀμφ' αὐτὸν ἑταῖροι
πρηνέες ἐν κονίῃσιν ὀδὰξ λαζοίατο γαῖαν.

Translation
At that, the Argives loosed a mighty shout,
as when the south wind whips the waves
against some beetling coast, some jutting point
that’s constantly assaulted by the swells
which winds from every angle summon up.
Then springing to their feet, the men ran off
and scattered all among the ships
to kindle fires and take their meal.
Each man made sacrifice to please
his favored god and prayed that he’d
escape from death and from the toil of war.
But Agamemnon, lord of men, sacrificed
a five-year ox, one rich and fat,
to lofty-minded Zeus, then gathered up
the best, most senior men of all the Greeks:
Nestor first, then Lord Idomeneus,
the two Ajaxes, the son of Tydeus;
Odysseus was sixth—a man like Zeus
in cunning thoughts—and Menelaus came
of his own will because of his respect
for how his brother labored there for him.
They circled round the ox and sprinkled grains
of barley on the victim’s head,
then Agamemnon spoke a prayer for them:

O most glorious, heaven-dwelling Zeus,
O god of the black clouds, let not
the sun go down nor night come on
before I cast the smoking halls
of Priam down headlong and fill
his doorways up with scorching fire,
and rend to tatters Hector’s shirt
upon his chest with piercing bronze, and make
his many comrades grind their teeth in dust!

Comments
I made fairly quick work of this passage, pausing over just a few minor problems. The simile was of course something I had to invest extra energy into, but it came off well here once I had the redoubled expression “some beetling coast, some jutting point” in place. (As a dedicated surfer, I always enjoy translating passages that describe the sea’s fury.) The other minor difficulty in the simile is the final phrase τὸν δ' οὔ ποτε κύματα λείπει παντοίων ἀνέμων, ὅτ' ἂν ἔνθ' ἢ ἔνθα γένωνται, which I translated as “that’s constantly assaulted by the swells / which winds from every angle summon up.” The meaning of the Greek is basically clear to me, even if the details of the syntax here are ambiguous (and Kirk, as usual, provides almost no assistance in his commentary). I ended up translating it according to how I felt the image would work best in English despite Kirk’s insistence that kumata (swells) is not the grammatical subject.

Another problem was the expression ἄλλος δ' ἄλλῳ ἔρεζε θεῶν αἰειγενετάων εὐχόμενος θάνατόν τε φυγεῖν καὶ μῶλον Ἄρηος at 400-01. These allos expressions can be difficult to get right. Here I opted for a loose translation: instead of working with some variation upon “different men sacrificed to different gods,” I went with “Each man made sacrifice to please / his favored god and prayed that he’d / escape from death and from the toil of war.” The expression “each man” gets allos fairly well, but “favored god” moves somewhat beyond what’s there in the Greek. I think it makes good sense of the general run of the sentence though.

I struggled a bit with 408-09, αὐτόματος δέ οἱ ἦλθε βοὴν ἀγαθὸς Μενέλαος: ᾔδεε γὰρ κατὰ θυμὸν ἀδελφεὸν ὡς ἐπονεῖτο. Here the problem is really 409, whose authenticity is in question anyway because of its explanatory quality, which makes it seem like a later, rhapsodic addition to 408. But I’ve kept it, as most texts do, and rendered the two lines as “and Menelaus came / of his own will because of his respect / for how his brother labored there for him.” I added the expression “for him,” thinking it’s implied by the notion of Menelaus feeling obligated to be at his brother’s side in all events.

Finally, Agamemnon’s prayer turned out very well, I think. It helps that it’s so short and direct. Since it’s a prayer, I decided on a slightly more stilted style than I usually try for. So I retained the “O” of the older English vocative style (and actually repeated it in line 2 to give an even more ritualistic feel), and used the expression “let not . . . nor.” One minor addition I made in order to get the passage to sound right and make sense in English is “piercing bronze” instead of just “bronze.”