Athena Suppressing the Fury of Achilles

Achilles answered, “I will do as you ask; for he who hears the gods is heard by them.” So he put away his sword, and Athena went back to Olympus. Then he turned to Agamemnon and cried, “Fool with the eyes of a dog and the heart of a deer, hear what I tell you now. See this staff that I have in my hand. Once it was the branch of a tree; now a king carries it in his hand. As surely as it will never again grow leaves, so surely will the Greeks one day miss Achilles. And you,when you see your people falling by the swords of the Trojans,will be sorry that you have done this wrong to the bravest man in your army.” And he threw the staff on the ground and sat down. Then the old man Nestor stood up and tried to make peace between the two. “Listen to me,” he said. “Great chiefs of old, with whom no one now alive would dare to fight, used to listen to me. You, King Agamemnon, do not take away from the brave Achilles the gift that the Greeks gave him; and you Achilles, pay due respect to him who is the King of Kings in Greece.”

So spoke Nestor, but he spoke in vain, for Agamemnon answered, “Peace is good; but this fellow would lord it over all.The gods have made him a great fighter, but they have not given him permission to set himself up above law and order. He must learn that there is one here better than he.”

And Achilles cried, “You better than me! I would be a slave and a coward if I admitted it. What the Greeks gave me,let them take away if they will. But remember this: if you lay your hands on anything that is my own, that hour you will die.”

Then the assembly was broken up. After a while,Agamemnon said to the messengers , “Go now to the tent of Achilles, and fetch the girl Briseis. And if he will not let her go,say that I will come with others to fetch her, and that it will be worse for him.”

So the messengers went, but it was much against their will that they did this. And when they came to that part of the camp where Achilles and his people were, they found him sitting between his tent and his ship. And they stood in great fear and shame. But when he saw them he spoke kind words to them,despite his heart’s rage. “Draw near, messengers. It is no fault of yours that you have come.”

Then he turned to Patroclus and said, “Fetch Briseis from her tent and give her to the messengers. Let them be witnesses of this evil deed, that they may remember it in the day when he shall need my help and shall not have it.”

So Patroclus brought out the girl and gave her to the messengers. And she went with them, much against her will, and often looking back. And when she was gone, Achilles left his companions and sat upon the seashore, weeping aloud and stretching out his hands to his mother Thetis , the daughter of the sea. She heard his voice when she sat in the depths by the side of her father, and rose from the sea, as a cloud rises, and came to him where he sat weeping, shaking him with her hand, and calling him by his name.

“Why do you weep, my son?” she said.

And he told her what had happened. When he had finished the story, he said, “Now go to Olympus, to the palace of Zeus.You helped him once in the old time, when the other gods would have put him in chains, fetching the great giant with the hundred hands to sit by his side, so that no one dared to touch him. Remind him of these things, and ask him to help the Trojans, and to make the Greeks flee before them, so that Agamemnon may learn how foolish he has been.”

His mother said, “Surely, my son, your situation is a difficult one. Your life must be short, and it should be happy;but, as it seems to me, it is both short and sad. Truly I will go to Zeus, but not now; for he is gone with the other gods to a twelve-day feast . But when he comes back, I will go to him and persuade him. Meanwhile, stay where you are, and do not go to battle.”

Meanwhile, Odysseus was taking back the priest’s daughter to her father. Very glad was he to see her again, and he prayed to his god that the plague among the Greeks might cease , and so it happened. But Achilles sat in his tent and worried, for there was nothing that he liked so much as the cry of the battle.

suppress /səˈpres/ vt. 镇压，抑制，查禁，使止住

staff /stɑ:f/ n. 权杖

lord it over 向……逞威风，对……称王称霸

coward /ˈk a ʊəd/ n. 懦弱的人，胆小的人

messenger /ˈmesɪndʒə/ n. 使者，信使，传令兵

witness /ˈwɪtnɪs/ n. 证人，目击者

stretch out 伸出，伸长（胳膊、腿）

Thetis 西蒂斯，海神涅柔斯的女儿

feast /fi:st/ n. 节日，盛宴

cease /si:s/ vi. 停止，终了