The Camp at Night

Homer (fl. 850 B.C.)

From the Greek by George Chapman
From “The Iliad,” Book VIII.

THE WINDS transferred into the friendly sky

Their supper’s savor; to the which they sat delightfully,

And spent all night in open field; fires round about them shined.

As when about the silver moon, when air is free from wind,

And stars shine clear, to whose sweet beams, high prospects, and the brows

Of all steep hills and pinnacles, thrust up themselves for shows,

And even the lowly valleys joy to glitter in their sight,

When the unmeasured firmament bursts to disclose her light,

And all the signs in heaven are seen, that glad the shepherd’s heart;

So many fires disclose their beams, made by the Trojan part,

Before the face of Ilion, and her bright turrets showed.

A thousand courts of guard kept fires, and every guard allowed

Fifty stout men, by whom their horse eat oats and hard white corn,

And all did wishfully expect the silver-thronèd morn.