“O Chryses! Agamemnon, king of men, Sends me in haste to bring this maid to thee And offer up this hallowed hecatomb To Phoebus, for the Greeks: that so the god, Whose wrath afflicts us sore, may be appeased.
So speaking, to her father’s hands he gave The maiden; joyfully the priest received The child he loved. Then did the Greeks array The noble hecatomb in order round The sculptured altar, and with washen hands They took the salted meal, while Chryses stood And spread abroad his hands and prayed aloud:—
“Hear me, thou bearer of the glittering bow, Who guardest Chrysa and the pleasant isle Of Cilia and art lord in Tenedos! Already hast thou listened to my prayer And honored me, and terribly hast scourged The Achaian people. Hear me yet again, And cause the plague that wastes the Greeks to cease.”
So spake he, supplicating, and to him Phoebus Apollo hearkened. When the prayers Were ended, and the salted meal was flung, Backward they turned the necks of the fat beeves, And cut their throats, and flayed the carcasses, And hewed away the thighs, and covered them With caul in double folds; and over this They laid raw fragments of the other parts. O’er all the aged priest poured dark red wine, And burned them on dry wood. A band of youths With five-pronged spits, beside him, thrust these through The entrails, which they laid among the flames. And when the thighs were all consumed, and next The entrails tasted, all the rest was carved Into small portions and transfixed with spits And roasted with nice care and then withdrawn From the hot coals. This task performed, they made The banquet ready. All became its guests And all