The Iliad by Homer (ereader for textbooks .txt) 📕

of your
foes as men caught in the meshes of a net, and they sack your fair city
forthwith. Keep this before your mind night and day, and beseech the
captains of your allies to hold on without flinching, and thus put away
their reproaches from you."

So spoke Sarpedon, and Hector smarted under his words. He sprang from
his chariot clad in his suit of armour, and went about among the host
brandishing his two spears, exhorting the men to fight and raising the
terrible cry of battle. Then they rallied and again faced the Achaeans,
but the Argives stood compact and firm, and were not driven back. As
the breezes sport with the chaff upon some goodly threshing-floor, when
men are winnowing--while yellow Ceres blows with the wind to sift the
chaff from the grain, and the chaff-heaps grow whiter and whiter--even
so did the Achaeans whiten in the dust which the horses' hoofs raised
to the firmament of heaven, as their drivers turned them back to
battle, and they bore down with might upon the foe. Fierce Mars, to
help the Trojans, covered them in a veil of darkness, and went about
everywhere among them, inasmuch as Phoebus Apollo had told him that
when he saw Pallas, Minerva leave the fray he was to put courage into
the hearts of the Trojans--for it was she who was helping the Danaans.
Then Apollo sent Aeneas forth from his rich sanctuary, and filled his
heart with valour, whereon he took his place among his comrades, who
were overjoyed at seeing him alive, sound, and of a good courage; but
they could not ask him how it had all happened, for they were too busy
with the turmoil raised by Mars and by Strife, who raged insatiably in
their midst.

The two Ajaxes, Ulysses and Diomed, cheered the Danaans on, fearless of
the fury and onset of the Trojans. They stood as still as clouds which
the son of Saturn has spread upon the mountain tops when there is no
air and fierce Boreas sleeps with the other boisterous winds whose
shrill blasts scatter the clouds in all directions--even so did the
Danaans stand firm and unflinching against the Trojans. The son of
Atreus went about among them and exhorted them. "My friends," said he,
"quit yourselves like brave men, and shun dishonour in one another's
eyes amid the stress of battle. They that shun dishonour more often
live than get killed, but they that fly save neither life nor name."

As he spoke he hurled his spear and hit one of those who were in the
front rank, the comrade of Aeneas, Deicoon son of Pergasus, whom the
Trojans held in no less honour than the sons of Priam, for he was ever
quick to place himself among the foremost. The spear of King Agamemnon
struck his shield and went right through it, for the shield stayed it
not. It drove through his belt into the lower part of his belly, and
his armour rang rattling round him as he fell heavily to the ground.

Then Aeneas killed two champions of the Danaans, Crethon and
Orsilochus. Their father was a rich man who lived in the strong city of
Phere and was descended from the river Alpheus, whose broad stream
flows through the land of the Pylians. The river begat Orsilochus, who
ruled over much people and was father to Diocles, who in his turn begat
twin sons, Crethon and Orsilochus, well skilled in all the arts of war.
These, when they grew up, went to Ilius with the Argive fleet in the
cause of Menelaus and Agamemnon sons of Atreus, and there they both of
them fell. As two lions whom their dam has reared in the depths of some
mountain forest to plunder homesteads and carry off sheep and cattle
till they get killed by the hand of man, so were these two vanquished
by Aeneas, and fell like high pine-trees to the ground.

Brave Menelaus pitied them in their fall, and made his way to the
front, clad in gleaming bronze and brandishing his spear, for Mars
egged him on to do so with intent that he should be killed by Aeneas;
but Antilochus the son of Nestor saw him and sprang forward, fearing
that the king might come to harm and thus bring all their labour to
nothing; when, therefore Aeneas and Menelaus were setting their hands
and spears against one another eager to do battle, Antilochus placed
himself by the side of Menelaus. Aeneas, bold though he was, drew back
on seeing the two heroes side by side in front of him, so they drew the
bodies of Crethon and Orsilochus to the ranks of the Achaeans and
committed the two poor fellows into the hands of their comrades. They
then turned back and fought in the front ranks.

They killed Pylaemenes peer of Mars, leader of the Paphlagonian
warriors. Menelaus struck him on the collar-bone as he was standing on
his chariot, while Antilochus hit his charioteer and squire Mydon, the
son of Atymnius, who was turning his horses in flight. He hit him with
a stone upon the elbow, and the reins, enriched with white ivory, fell
from his hands into the dust. Antilochus rushed towards him and struck
him on the temples with his sword, whereon he fell head first from the
chariot to the ground. There he stood for a while with his head and
shoulders buried deep in the dust--for he had fallen on sandy soil till
his horses kicked him and laid him flat on the ground, as Antilochus
lashed them and drove them off to the host of the Achaeans.

But Hector marked them from across the ranks, and with a loud cry
rushed towards them, followed by the strong battalions of the Trojans.
Mars and dread Enyo led them on, she fraught with ruthless turmoil of
battle, while Mars wielded a monstrous spear, and went about, now in
front of Hector and now behind him.

Diomed shook with passion as he saw them. As a man crossing a wide
plain is dismayed to find himself on the brink of some great river
rolling swiftly to the sea--he sees its boiling waters and starts back
in fear--even so did the son of Tydeus give ground. Then he said to his
men, "My friends, how can we wonder that Hector wields the spear so
well? Some god is ever by his side to protect him, and now Mars is with
him in the likeness of mortal man. Keep your faces therefore towards
the Trojans, but give ground backwards, for we dare not fight with
gods."

As he spoke the Trojans drew close up, and Hector killed two men, both
in one chariot, Menesthes and Anchialus, heroes well versed in war.
Ajax son of Telamon pitied them in their fall; he came close up and
hurled his spear, hitting Amphius the son of Selagus, a man of great
wealth who lived in Paesus and owned much corn-growing land, but his
lot had led him to come to the aid of Priam and his sons. Ajax struck
him in the belt; the spear pierced the lower part of his belly, and he
fell heavily to the ground. Then Ajax ran towards him to strip him of
his armour, but the Trojans rained spears upon him, many of which fell
upon his shield. He planted his heel upon the body and drew out his
spear, but the darts pressed so heavily upon him that he could not
strip the goodly armour from his shoulders. The Trojan chieftains,
moreover, many and valiant, came about him with their spears, so that
he dared not stay; great, brave and valiant though he was, they drove
him from them and he was beaten back.

Thus, then, did the battle rage between them. Presently the strong hand
of fate impelled Tlepolemus, the son of Hercules, a man both brave and
of great stature, to fight Sarpedon; so the two, son and grandson of
great Jove, drew near to one another, and Tlepolemus spoke first.
"Sarpedon," said he, "councillor of the Lycians, why should you come
skulking here you who are a man of peace? They lie who call you son of
aegis-bearing Jove, for you are little like those who were of old his
children. Far other was Hercules, my own brave and lion-hearted father,
who came here for the horses of Laomedon, and though he had six ships
only, and few men to follow him, sacked the city of Ilius and made a
wilderness of her highways. You are a coward, and your people are
falling from you. For all your strength, and all your coming from
Lycia, you will be no help to the Trojans but will pass the gates of
Hades vanquished by my hand."

And Sarpedon, captain of the Lycians, answered, "Tlepolemus, your
father overthrew Ilius by reason of Laomedon's folly in refusing
payment to one who had served him well. He would not give your father
the horses which he had come so far to fetch. As for yourself, you
shall meet death by my spear. You shall yield glory to myself, and your
soul to Hades of the noble steeds."

Thus spoke Sarpedon, and Tlepolemus upraised his spear. They threw at
the same moment, and Sarpedon struck his foe in the middle of his
throat; the spear went right through, and the darkness of death fell
upon his eyes. Tlepolemus's spear struck Sarpedon on the left thigh
with such force that it tore through the flesh and grazed the bone, but
his father as yet warded off destruction from him.

His comrades bore Sarpedon out of the fight, in great pain by the
weight of the spear that was dragging from his wound. They were in such
haste and stress as they bore him that no one thought of drawing the
spear from his thigh so as to let him walk uprightly. Meanwhile the
Achaeans carried off the body of Tlepolemus, whereon Ulysses was moved
to pity, and panted for the fray as he beheld them. He doubted whether
to pursue the son of Jove, or to make slaughter of the Lycian rank and
file; it was not decreed, however, that he should slay the son of Jove;
Minerva, therefore, turned him against the main body of the Lycians. He
killed Coeranus, Alastor, Chromius, Alcandrus, Halius, Noemon, and
Prytanis, and would have slain yet more, had not great Hector marked
him, and sped to the front of the fight clad in his suit of mail,
filling the Danaans with terror. Sarpedon was glad when he saw him
coming, and besought him, saying, "Son of Priam, let me not be here to
fall into the hands of the Danaans. Help me, and since I may not return
home to gladden the hearts of my wife and of my infant son, let me die
within the walls of your city."

Hector made him no answer, but rushed onward to fall at once upon the
Achaeans and kill many among them. His comrades then bore Sarpedon away
and laid him beneath Jove's spreading oak tree. Pelagon, his friend and
comrade, drew the spear out of his thigh, but Sarpedon fainted and a
mist came over his eyes. Presently he came to himself again, for the
breath of the north wind as it played upon him gave him new life, and
brought him out of the deep swoon into which he had fallen.

Meanwhile the Argives were neither driven towards their ships by Mars
and Hector, nor yet did they attack them; when they knew that Mars was
with the Trojans they retreated, but kept their faces still turned
towards the foe. Who, then, was first and who last to be slain by Mars
and Hector? They were valiant