Seba.Health

The Iliad 24.247–252

The Iliad 24.247–252
and Pammon and Antiphonus and Polites, good at the war-cry, and Deiphobus and Hippothous and lordly Dius. To these nine the old man called aloud, and gave command: Haste ye, base children that are my shame; would that ye all together in Hector's stead had been slain at the swift ships!Woe is me, that am all unblest, seeing that I begat sons the best in the broad land of Troy, yet of them I avow that not one is left, not godlike Mestor, not Troilus the warrior charioteer, not Hector that was a god among men, neither seemed he as the son of a mortal man, but of a god:all them hath Ares slain, yet these things of shame are all left me, false of tongue, nimble of foot, peerless at beating the floor in the dance, robbers of lambs and kids from your own folk. Will ye not make me ready a waggon, and that with speed, and lay all these things therein, that we may get forward on our way?
καὶ σκηπανίῳ δίεπʼ ἀνέρας· οἳ δʼ ἴσαν ἔξω σπερχομένοιο γέροντος· δʼ υἱάσιν οἷσιν ὁμόκλα νεικείων Ἕλενόν τε Πάριν τʼ Ἀγάθωνά τε δῖον Πάμμονά τʼ Ἀντίφονόν τε βοὴν ἀγαθόν τε Πολίτην Δηΐφοβόν τε καὶ Ἱππόθοον καὶ δῖον Ἀγαυόν· ἐννέα τοῖς γεραιὸς ὁμοκλήσας ἐκέλευε·
Lattimore commentary
The depiction is psychologically apt—a grief-maddened father recklessly turns on the living to take out his resentment.
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