As when a forest on the mountaintop Is in a blaze with the devouring flame And shines afar, so, while the warriors marched, The brightness of their burnished weapons flashed On every side and upward to the sky.
And as when water-fowl of many tribes— Geese, cranes, and long-necked swans—disport themselves In Asia’s fields beside Cayster’s streams, And to and fro they fly with screams, and light, Flock after flock, and all the fields resound; So poured, from ships and tents, the swarming tribes Into Scamander’s plain, where fearful’y Earth echoed to the tramp of steeds and men; And there they mustered on the river’s side, Numberless as the flowers and leaves of spring, And as when flies in swarming myriads haunt The herdsman’s stalls in spring-time, when new milk Has filled the pails—in such vast multitudes Mustered the long-haired Greeks upon the plain, Impatient to destroy the Trojan race.
Then, as the goatherds, when their mingled flocks Are in the pastures, know and set apart Each his own scattered charge, so did the chiefs, Moving among them, marshal each his men. There walked King Agamemnon, like to Jove In eye and forehead, with the loins of Mars, And ample chest like him who rules the sea. And as a bull amid the horned herd Stands eminent and nobler than the rest, So Jove to Agamemnon on that day Gave to surpass the chiefs in port and mien.
O Muses, goddesses who dwell on high, Tell me—for all things ye behold and know, While we know nothing and may only hear The random tales of rumor—tell me who Were chiefs and princes of the Greeks; for I Should fail to number and to name them all— Had I ten tongues, ten throats, a voice unapt To weary, uttered from a heart of brass— Unless the Muses aided me. I now Will sing of the commanders and the ships.