It Begins

Alan Jacobs' criticisms of official lists of must read books notwithstanding, I've begun my Quarterly Classics series with The Illiad.  My copy is an 1898 edition in William Cullen Bryant's translation.  Picked it up at a library used book rack back in Wheaton I think.  No clue if it's a good translation.  You tell me:

O Goddess! sing the wrath of Peleus' son,
Achilles; sing the deadly wrath that brought
Woes numberless upon the Greeks, and swept
To Hades many a valiant soul, and gave
Their limbs a prey to dogs and birds of air,--
For so had Jove appointed,--from the time
When the two chiefs, Atrides, kings of men,
And great Achilles, parted first as foes.