Together, first they quenched the funeral fires,
Wherever they had spread, with dark-red wine,
And then his brothers and companions searched
For the white bones. In sorrow and in tears,
That streaming stained their cheeks, they gathered them,
And placed them in a golden um. O’er this
They drew a covering of soft purple robes,
And laid it in a hollow grave, and piled
Fragments of rock above it, many and huge.
In haste they reared the tomb, with sentries set
On every side, lest all too soon the Greeks
Should come in armor to renew the war.
When now the tomb was built, the multitude
Returned, and in the halls where Priam dwelt
Nursling of Jove, were feasted royally.
Such was the mighty Hector’s burial rite.
Colophon
The Iliad
is thought to have been written between 800 and 700 BC by
Homer.
It was translated from Homeric Greek in 1870 by
William Cullen Bryant.
This ebook was produced for
Standard Ebooks
by
Emma Sweeney
and is based on digital scans available at the
Internet Archive.
The cover page is adapted from
Oath of the Horatii,
a painting completed in 1786 by
Anne-Louis Girodet Roussy-Trioson
and Jacques-Louis David.
The cover and title pages feature the
League Spartan and Sorts Mill Goudy
typefaces created in 2014 and 2009 by
The League of Moveable Type.
The first edition of this ebook was released on
January 29, 2020, 11:16 p.m.
You can check for updates to this ebook, view its revision history, or download it for different ereading systems at
standardebooks.org/ebooks/homer/the-iliad/william-cullen-bryant.
The volunteer-driven Standard Ebooks project relies on readers like you to submit typos, corrections, and other improvements. Anyone can contribute at standardebooks.org.
Uncopyright
May you do good and not evil.
May you find forgiveness for yourself and forgive others.
May you share freely, never taking more than you give.
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