Goats

Created by Jijith Nadumuri at 21 Sep 2011 15:04 and updated at 21 Sep 2011 15:04

ILIAD NOUN

ild.01 If I have ever decked your temple with garlands, or burned your thigh bones in fat of Bulls or Goats, grant my prayer, and let your arrows avenge these my tears upon the Danaans.
ild.01 Let us ask some priest or prophet, or some reader of dreams (for dreams, too, are of Jove) who can tell us why Phoebus Apollo is so angry, and say whether it is for some vow that we have broken, or Hecatomb that we have not offered, and whether he will accept the savour of lambs and Goats without blemish, so as to take away the plague from us.
ild.01 Then they offered Hecatombs of Bulls and Goats without blemish on the sea shore, and the smoke with the savour of their sacrifice rose curling up towards heaven.
ild.10 As a Lion springs furiously upon a flock of Sheep or Goats when he finds without their shepherd, so did the son of Tydeus set upon the Thracian soldiers till he had killed Twelve.
ild.11 So there the poor fellow lay, sleeping a sleep as it were of Bronze, killed in the defence of his fellow citizens, far from his wedded wife, of whom he had had no joy though he had given much for her: he had given a hundred head of Cattle down, and had promised later on to give a thousand Sheep and Goats mixed, from the countless flocks of which he was possessed.
ild.11 Thereon Paris with a hearty laugh sprang forward from his hiding place, and taunted him saying, "You are wounded my arrow has not been shot in vain; would that it had hit you in the belly and killed you, for thus the Trojans, who fear you as Goats fear a Lion, would have had a truce from evil.
ild.11 We drove off a vast quantity of booty from the plain, Fifty herds of Cattle and as many flocks of Sheep; Fifty droves also of Pigs, and as many wide spreading flocks of Goats.
ild.23 He looked all sorrowfully out upon the dark sea, and said, Spercheius", in vain did my father Peleus vow to you that when I returned home to my loved native land I should cut off this lock and offer you a holy Hecatomb; Fifty she Goats was I to sacrifice to you there at your springs, where is your grove and your altar fragrant with burnt offerings.
ild.24 Did not Hector burn you thigh bones of heifers and of unblemished Goats? And now dare you not rescue even his dead body, for his wife to look upon, with his mother and child, his father Priam, and his people, who would forthwith commit him to the flames, and give him his due funeral rites? So, then, you would all be on the side of mad Achilles, who knows neither right nor ruth? He is like some savage Lion that in the pride of his great strength and daring springs upon men s flocks and gorges on them.

Arise Greece! from thy silent sleep, 2000 years long it is! Forget not, thy ancient culture, beautiful and marvelous it is!

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