Iliad 14 (153-353)

Trustees of Boston University

Iliad 14 (153-353)Author(s): Robert FitzgeraldSource: Arion, New Series, Vol. 1, No. 3 (1973/1974), pp. 439-445Published by: Trustees of Boston UniversityStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20163336 .

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ILIAD 14 (153-353)

Translated by Robert Fitzgerald

Now Lady Hera of the Golden Chair

had turned her eyes upon the war. She stood

apart upon a snowcrest of Olympos and recognized her brother-in-law, her brother,

striving in battle, breathing hard?a sight that pleased her. Then she looked at Zeus, who rested

high on the ridge of Ida bright with springs, and found him odious.

Her ladyship of the wide eyes took thought how to distract

her lord who bears the stormcloud. Her best plan, she thought, was this: to scent and adorn herself

and visit Ida, hoping hot desire

might rise in him?desire to lie with her

and make love to her nakedness?that so

she might infuse warm slumber on his eyes and over his shrewd heart.

She entered then

the chamber built for her by her own son,

H?phaistos, who had fitted door to doorpost

using a secret bolt no god could force.

These shining doors the goddess closed behind her, and with ambrosia cleansed all stain away from her delectable skin. Then with fine oil, she smoothed herself, and this, her scented oil,

unstoppered in the bronze-floored house of Zeus, cast fragrance over earth and heaven. Hera,

having anointed all her graceful body, and having combed her hair, plaited it shining in braids from her immortal head. That done, she chose a wondrous gown, worked by Ath?na

From the book The Iliad, Translated by Robert Fitzgerald

Copyright ? 1974 by Robert Fitzgerald To be published by Doubleday & Company, Inc.



440 ILIAD 14

in downy linen with embroideries.

She caught this at her breast with golden pins and girt it with a waistband, sewn all around

with a hundred tasseis.

Then she hung

mulberry-colored pendants in her earlobes, and loveliness shone round her. A new headdress

white as the sun she took to veil her glory, and on her smooth feet tied her beautiful sandals.

Exquisite and adorned from head to foot

she left her chamber. Beckoning Aphrodite, she spoke to her apart from all the rest:

'Will you give heed to me, dear, and do as I say, and not be difficult? Even though you are vexed

that I give aid and comfort to Dan?ans as you do to the Trojans."

Aphrodite,

daughter of Zeus, replied:

"Hera, most honored

of goddesses, being Kr?nos' own daughter, say what you have in mind!

I am disposed to do it if I can, and if it is a thing that one may do."

And Lady Hera, deep in her beguilement, answered:

"Lend me longing, lend me desire,

by which you bring immortals low as you do mortal men!

I am on my way to kind Earth's bourne to see Ok?anos, from whom the gods arose, and Mother Tethys. In their great hall they nurtured me, their gift from Rhea, when Lord Zeus of the wide gaze

put Kr?nos down, deep under earth and sea.

I go to see them and compose their quarrel:

estranged so long, they have not once made love



Robert Fitzgerald 441

since anger came between them. Could I coax them

into their bed to give and take delight, I should be prized and dear to them forever."

Aphrodite, lover of smiling eyes,

replied to her:

"It is not possible and not expedient, either, to deny you,

who go to lie in the great arms of Zeus."

Now she unfastened from around her breast

a pieced brocaded girdle. Her enchantments

came from this: allurement of the eyes,

hunger of longing, and the touch of lips that steals all wisdom from the coolest men.

This she bestowed in Hera's hands and murmured:

"Take this girdle, keep it in your breast.

Here are all suavities and charms of love.

I do not think you will be ineffective

in what you plan."

Then wide-eyed Hera smiled

and smiling put the talisman in her breast.

Aphrodite entered her father's house, but Hera glided from Olympos, passing Pieria and cherished Emathia,

flashing above the snowy-crested hills

of Thracian horsemen. Never touching down, she turned from Athos over the sea waves

to Lemnos, to the stronghold of old Thoas.

Here she fell in with Sleep, brother of Death, and took his hand and held it, saying warmly:

"Sleep, sovereign of gods and all mankind, if ever you gave heed to me before,

comply again this time, and all my days I shall know well I am beholden. Lull

to sleep for me the shining eyes of Zeus as soon as I lie down with him in love.



442 Iliad 14

Then I shall make a gift to you, a noble,

golden, eternal chair: my bandy-legged son H?phaistos by his craft will make it

and fit it with a low footrest

where you may place your feet while taking wine."

But mild sweet Sleep replied:

"Most venerable

goddess, daughter of Kr?nos, great of old,

among the gods who never die, I might

easily lull another to sleep?yes, even

the ebb and flow of cold Ok?anos, the primal source of all that lives.

But Zeus the son of Kr?nos? No, not I.

I could not venture near him, much less lull him, unless by his command.

One other time

you taught me something, giving me a mission, when Herakles, the prodigious son of Zeus, had plundered Ilion and come away. That day indeed I cast my spell on the Father s heart; I drifted dim about him,

while you prepared rough sailing for the hero.

In the open sea you stirred a gale that drove

Herakles on Kos Island, far from friends.

Then Zeus woke up and fell into a fury and hurled the gods about his hall, in quest of me above all. Out of heaven's air

into deep sea to be invisible forever

he would have plunged me, had not Night preserved me,

all-subduing Night, mistress of gods and men: I fled to her, and he for all his rage drew back, for fear

of doing a displeasure to swift Night. A second time you ask me to perform

something I may not."

But to this she answered:

"Why must you dwell on that unhappy day?




Can you believe that Zeus who views the wide world

will be as furious in defense of Trojans as for his own son, Herakles?

No, no.

Come. I should add, my gift to you will be

one of the younger Graces for a mistress, ever to be called vours."

In eager pleasure,

Sleep said:

"Swear by Styx' corroding water!

Place one hand on earth, grassland of herds, and dip your other hand in dazzling sea:

all gods with Kr?nos in the abyss, attest

that I shall marry one of the younger Graces,

P?sithea, the one I have desired

all my living days."

Without demur, Hera whose arms shone white as ivory took oath as he demanded. Each by name

she called on all the powers of the abyss, on all the Titans. Then, when she had sworn, these two departed in the air from Lemnos,

putting on veils of cloudrack, lightly running toward Ida, mother of beasts and bright with springs.

At Lekton promontory, from the sea

they veered inland and upland. At their passage

treetops were in commotion underfoot.

But Sleep soon halted and remained behind

before he came in range of Zeus's eyes. He mounted a tall pine, the tallest one

on Ida, grown through mist to pierce the sky. Amid the evergreen boughs he hid and clung and seemed that mountain thrush of the clear tone, called "khalkis" by the gods, by men "kymindis."

Hera swept on to G?rgaron, Ida's crest, and there Zeus, lord of cloud, saw her arrive.

He gazed at her, and as he gazed desire



444 Iliad 14

veiled his mind like mist, as in those days when they had first slipped from their parents' eyes to bed, to mingle by the hour in love.

He stood before her now and said:

"What brings you down from Olympos to this place? The chariot you ride is not in sight."

The Lady Hera answered him in guile:

"I go my way to the bourne of Earth, to see

Ok?anos, from whom the gods arose, and Mother Tethys. In their distant hall

they nourished me and cared for me in childhood.

Now I must see them and compose their strife.

They live apart from one another's bed,

estranged so long, since anger came between them.

As for my team, it stands at Ida's base

ready to take me over earth and sea.

On your account I came to see you first, so that you will not rage at me for going in secret where Ok?anos runs deep."

The lord of cloud replied:

"But you may go there

later, Hera. Come, lie down. We two

must give ourselves to love-making. Desire

for girl or goddess in so wild a flood

never came over me! Not for Ixion's bride

who bore that peerless man, Peirithoos; or D?nae with her delicious legs, illustrious Perseus' mother; or Europa,

daughter of Phoinix, world-renowned, who bore me

Minos and magnificent Rhadam?nthys; S?m?l? or Alkm?n?, Theban ladies

one bore the rugged hero Herakles, the other Dionysos, joy of men; or Demeter, the queen, in her blond braids;




or splendid L?to; or yourself! No lust

as sweet as this for you has ever taken me!"

To this the Lady Hera in her guile

replied:

"Most formidable son of Kr?nos, how impetuous! Would you lie down here on Ida's crest for all the world to see?

Suppose one of the gods who never die

perceived us here asleep and took the story to all the rest? I could not bear to walk

directly from this love-bed to your hall, it would be so embarrassing.

If you must, if this is what you wish, and near your heart, there is my own bedchamber. Your dear son,

H?phaistos, built it, and he fitted well

the solid door and doorjamb. We should go to he down there, since bed is now your pleasure."

But the lord marshal of stormcloud said:

"No fear

this act will be observed by god or man, I shall enshroud us in such golden cloud.

Not even Helios could glimpse us through it, and his hot ray is finest at discerning."

At this he took his wife in his embrace, and under them earth flowered delicate grass and clover wet with dew; then crocuses

and solid beds of tender hyacinth came crowding upward from the ground. On these the two lay down and drew around them purest

vapor of golden cloud; the droplets fell

away in sunlight sparkling. Soon the Father,

subjugated by love and sleep, lay still

Still as a stone on G?rgaron height he lay and slumbered with his lady in his arms.



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Iliad 14 (153-353)