previous next
So spake he, and the messenger, Argeiphontes, failed not to hearken. [340] Straightway he bound beneath his feet his beautiful sandals, immortal, golden, which were wont to bear him over the waters of the sea and over the boundless land swift as the blasts of the wind. And he took the wand wherewith he lulls to sleep the eyes of whom he will, while others again he awakens even out of slumber. [345] With this in his hand the strong Argeiphontes flew, and quickly came to Troy-land and the Hellespont. Then went he his way in the likeness of a young man that is a prince, with the first down upon his lip, in whom the charm of youth is fairest. Now when the others had driven past the great barrow of Ilus, [350] they halted the mules and the horses in the river to drink; for darkness was by now come down over the earth. Then the herald looked and was ware of Hermes hard at hand, and he spake to Priam, saying:“Bethink thee, son of Dardanus, [355] here is somewhat that calls for prudent thought. I see a man, and anon methinks shall we be cut to pieces. Come, let us flee in thie chariot, or at least clasp his knees and entreat him, if so be he will have pity.” So spake he, and the old man's mind was confounded and he was sore afraid, and up stood the hair on his pliant limbs, [360] and he stood in a daze. But of himself the Helper drew nigh, and took the ohd man's hand, and made question of him, saying: “Whither, Father, dost thou thus guide horses and mules through the immortal night when other mortals are sleeping? Art thou untouched by fear of the fury-breathing Achaeans, [365] hostile men and ruthless that are hard anigh thee? If one of them should espy thee bearing such store of treasure through the swift bhack night, what were thy counsel then? Thou art not young thyself, and thy companion here is old, that ye should defend you against a man, when one waxes wroth without a cause. [370] But as for me, I will nowise harm thee, nay, I will even defend thee against another; for like unto my dear father art thou in mine eyes.”

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.

load focus Greek (1920)
hide Places (automatically extracted)

View a map of the most frequently mentioned places in this document.

Download Pleiades ancient places geospacial dataset for this text.

hide References (2 total)
  • Commentary references to this page (1):
    • W. Walter Merry, James Riddell, D. B. Monro, Commentary on the Odyssey (1886), 5.43
  • Cross-references in text-specific dictionaries to this page (1):
hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: