Iliad IV

οἳ δ᾽ ὅτε δή ῥ᾽ ἐς χῶρον ἕνα ξυνιόντες ἵκοντο, σύν ῥ᾽ ἔβαλον ῥινούς, σὺν δ᾽ ἔγχεα καὶ μένε᾽ ἀνδρῶν
χαλκεοθωρήκων: ἀτὰρ ἀσπίδες ὀμφαλόεσσαι
ἔπληντ᾽ ἀλλήλῃσι, πολὺς δ᾽ ὀρυμαγδὸς ὀρώρει.
ἔνθα δ᾽ ἅμ᾽ οἰμωγή τε καὶ εὐχωλὴ πέλεν ἀνδρῶν
ὀλλύντων τε καὶ ὀλλυμένων, ῥέε δ᾽ αἵματι γαῖα. ὡς δ᾽ ὅτε χείμαρροι ποταμοὶ κατ᾽ ὄρεσφι ῥέοντες
ἐς μισγάγκειαν συμβάλλετον ὄβριμον ὕδωρ
κρουνῶν ἐκ μεγάλων κοίλης ἔντοσθε χαράδρης,
τῶν δέ τε τηλόσε δοῦπον ἐν οὔρεσιν ἔκλυε ποιμήν: ὣς τῶν μισγομένων γένετο ἰαχή τε πόνος τε.

 
And when then indeed they arrived coming together to the place, then they cast with hide-shields, and with lances and fury of the brass-cuirassed men. Yet the studded shields filled one another, and aroused much din. And thither at the same time lamentation and prayer moved the men destroying and being destroyed, and blood flowed upon the earth. And as when winter-swollen rivers flowing down the mountains to the glen basin where the heavy waters unite from their great sources within the torrent of a gorge, and their thunder in the heaven instructs the shepherd afar, thus came both the cry and toil of their meeting.

I subbed a half-day today for high school choir, a class M&Lux both take. Lux came down during the empty first block and we took turns reading aloud sections of Paradise Lost IX, coming through the part where Satan "like a black mist low creeping" inhabits the serpent. Currently reading more Iliad IV, Matt 25, Joshua 15, Livy, and Rabelais. J&I , who have done well in our resolutions to cleanliness and order, rewarded ourselves with Monopoly Streets, which we stayed up playing far too late into the night. J is officially in her second trimester, and I've begun to experience some paternal anxiety. Not on behalf of myself, of course, (though I am frightened I'll become the sort of single-minded person whose social interactions consist entirely of talking about his children...my parents did an exemplary job of protecting themselves and their children from this embarrassment) but for the tumbles and scrapes of the baby. Two nights ago Baby H fell in the bathtub, and chipped a tooth badly; her smile is awfully crooked now. It's a hard enough thing to hear about secondhand to your niece; how could I watch something like that happen to a son or daughter?