by Homer
To take the draught of chariots by any mortal's hand;
The great grandchild of iEacus hath only their command,
Whom an immortal mother bore. While thou attend'st on these,
The young Atrides, in defence of Menoetiades,
Hath slain Euphorbus." Thus the God took troop with men again,
And Hector, heartily perplexed, looked round, and saw the slain
Still shedding rivers from his wound; and then took envious view
Of brave Atrides with his spoil, in way to whom he flew
Like one of Yulcan's quenchless flames. Atrides heard the cry
That ever ushered him, and sighed, and said: " O me, if I
Should leave, these goodly arms and him that here lies dead for me,
I fear I should offend the Greeks; if I should stay and be
Alone with Hector and his men, I may be compassed in,
Some sleight or other they may use, many may quickly win
Their wills of one, and all Troy comes ever where Hector leads.
But why, dear mind, dost thou thus talk? When men dare set their heads
Against the Gods, as sure they do that fight with men they love,
Straight one or other plague ensues. It cannot therefore move
The grudge of any Greek that sees I yield to Hector, he
Still fighting with a spirit from heaven. And yet if I could see
Brave Ajax, he and I would stand, though 'gainst a God; and sure
'Tis best I seek him, and then see if we two cau procure
This corse's freedom through all these. A little then let rest
The body, and my mind be still. Of two bads choose the best."
In this discourse, the troops of Troy were in with him, and he
Made such a lion-like retreat as when the herdsmen see
The royal savage, and come on, with men, dogs, cries, and spears,
To clear their horned stall, and then the kingly heart he bears
(With all his high disdain) falls off; so from this odds of aid
The golden-haired Atrides fled, and in his strength displayed
Upon his left hand him he wished, extremely busied
About encouraging his men, to whom an extreme dread
Apollo had infused. The king reached Ajax instantly,
And said : " Come, friend, let us two haste, and from the tyranny
Of Hector free Patroclus' corse." He straight and gladly went;
And then was Hector haling off the body, with intent
To spoil the shoulders of the dead and give the dogs the rest,
His arms he having prized before, when Ajax brought his breast
To bar all further spoil. With that he had sure Hector thought
'Twas best to satisfy his spleen; which temper Ajax wrought
With his mere sight, and Hector fled. The arms he sent to Troy,
To make his citizens admire, and pray Jove send him joy.
Then Ajax gathered to the corse, and hid it with his targe,
There setting down as sure a foot as, in the tender charge
Of his loved whelps, a lion doth, two hundred hunters near
To give him onset, their more force makes him the more austere,
Drowns all their clamours in his roars, darts, dogs, doth all despise,
And lets his rough brows down so low they cover all his eyes;
So Ajax looked, and stood, and stayed for great Priamides.'
When Glaucus Hippolochides saw Ajax thus depress
The spirit of Hector, thus he chid : " O goodly man at arms,
In fight a Paris, why should fame make thee fort 'gainst our harms,
Being such a fugitive? Now mark how well thy boasts defend
Thy city only with her own. Be sure it shall descend
To that proof wholly. Not a man of any Lycian rank
Shall strike one stroke more for thy town, for no man gets a thank
Should he eternally fight here, nor any guard of thee.
How wilt thou, worthless that thou art, keep off an enemy
From our poor soldiers, when their prince, Sarpedon, guest and friend
To thee, and most deservedly, thou flew'st from in his end,
And left'st to all the lust of Greece? O Gods, a man that was
In life so huge a good to Troy, and to thee such a grace,
In death not kept by thee from dogs! If my friends will do well,
We'll take our shoulders from your walls, and let all sink to hell;
As all will, were our faces turned. Did such a spirit breathe
In all you Trojans as becomes all men that fight beneath
Their country's standard, you would see that such as prop your cause
With like exposure of their lives have all the honoured laws
Of such a dear confederacy kept to them to a thread,
As now ye might reprise the arms Sarpedon forfeited
By forfeit of your rights to him, would you but lend your hands
And force Patroclus to your Troy. Ye know how dear he stands
In his love that of all the Greeks is, for himself, far best,
And leads the best near-fighting men, and therefore would at least
Redeem Sarpedon's arms, nay him, whom you have likewise lost.
This body drawn to Ilion would after draw and cost
A greater ransom if you pleased; but Ajax startles you;
'Tis his breast bars this right to us; his looks are darts enow
To mix great Hector with his men. And not to blame ye are
You choose foes underneath your strengths, Ajax exceeds ye far."
Hector looked passing sour at this, and answered : " Why dar'st thou,
So under, talk above me so? O friend, I thought till now
Thy wisdom was superior to all th' inhabitants
Of gleby Lycia; but now impute apparent wants
To that discretion thy words show, to say I lost my ground
For Ajax' greatness. Nor fear I the field in combats drowned,
Nor force of chariots, but I fear a Power much better seen
In right of all war than all we. That God, that holds between
Our victory and us his shield, lets conquest come and go,
At his free pleasure, and with fear converts her changes so
Upon the strongest. Men must fight when his just spirit impels,
Not their vain glories. But come on, make thy steps parallels
To these of mine, and then be judge how deep the work will draw.
If then I spend the day in shifts, or thou canst give such law
To thy detractive speeches then, or if the Grecian host
Holds any that in pride of strength holds up his spirit most,
Whom, for the carriage of this prince that thou enforcest so,
I make not stoop in his defence. You, friends, ye hear and know
How much it fits ye to make good this Grecian I have slain,
For ransom of Jove's son, our friend. Play then the worthy men,
Till I endue Achilles' arms." This said, he left the fight,
And called back those that bore the arms, not yet without his sight,
In convoy of them towards Troy. For them he changed his own,
Removed from where it rained* tears, and sent them back to town.
Then put he on th' eternal arms that the Celestial States
Gave Peleus; Peleus being old their use appropriates
To his Achilles, that, like him, forsook them not for age.
When he, whose empire is in clouds, saw Hector bent to wage
War in divine Achilles' arms, he shook his head,.and said :
“Poor wretch, thy thoughts are far from death, though he so near hath laid
His ambush for thee. Thou putt'st on those arms, as braving him
Whom others fear, hast slain his friend, and from his youthful limb
Torn rudely off his heavenly arms, himself being gentle, k
ind,
And valiant. Equal measure then thy life in youth must find.
Yet since the justice is so strict, that, not Andromache,
In thy denied return from fight, must ever take of thee
Those arms, in glory of thy acts, thou shalt have that frail blaze
Of excellence, that neighbours death; a strength even to amaze."
To this his sable brows did bow; and he made fit his limb
To those great arms, to fill which up the War-god entered him
Austere and terrible, his joint" and every part extends
With strength and fortitude; and thus to his admiring friends
High Clamour brought him. He so shined, that all could think no less
But he resembled every way great-souled Aeacides.
Then every way he scoured the field, his captains calling on;
Asteropseus, Eunomus that foresaw all things done,
Glaucus, and Medon, Desinor, and strong Thersilocus,
Phorcis, and Mesthles, Chromius, and great Hippothous;
To all these, and their populous troops, these his excitements were :
“Hear us, innumerable friends, near-bordering nations, hear :
We have not called you from your towns to fill our idle eye
With number of so many men (no such vain empery
Did ever joy us) but to fight, and of our Trojan wives,
With all their children, manfully to save the innocent lives,
In whose cares we draw all our towns of aiding soldiers dry
With gifts, guards, victual, all things fit, and hearten their supply
With all like rights; and therefore now let all sides set down this,
Or live, or perish; this of war the special secret is.
In which most resolute design, who ever bears to town
Patroclus, laid dead to his' hand, by winning the renown
Of Ajax' slaughter, the half-spoil we wholly will impart
To his free use, and to ourself the other half convert;
And so the glory shall be shared, ourself will have no more
Than he shall shine in." This drew all to bring abroad their store
Before the body. Every man had hope it would be his,
And forced from Ajax. Silly fools, Ajax prevented this
By raising rampires to his friend with half their carcasses.
And yet his humour was to roar, and fear, and now no less
To startle Sparta's king, to whom he cried out: " O my friend!
O Menelaus! Ne'er more hope to get off; here's the end
Of all our labours. Not so much I fear to lose the corse
(For that's sure gone, the fowls of Troy and dogs will quickly force
That piece-meal) as I fear my head, and thine, O Atreus' son.
Hector a cloud brings will hide all. Instant destruction,
Grievous and heavy, comes. O call our peers to aid us; fly."
He hasted, and used all his voice, sent far and near his cry :
“O princes, chief lights of the Greeks, and you that publicly
Eat with our General and me, all men of charge, O know
Jove gives both grace and dignity to any that will show
Good minds for only good itself, though presently the eye
Of him that rules discern him not. 'Tis hard for me t' espy
Through all this smoke of burning fight each captain in his place,
And call assistance to our need. Be then each other's grace,
And freely follow each his next. Disdain to let the joy
Of great Aeacides be forced to feed the beasts of Troy."
His voice was first heard and oheyed by swift Oi'liades;
Idomeneus and his mate, renowned Meriones,
Were seconds to Oileus' son; but, of the rest, whose mind
Can lay upon his voice the names that after these comhined
In setting up this fight on end? The Trojans first gave on.
And as into the sea's vast mouth when mighty rivers run,
Their hillows and the sea resound, and all the utter shore
Rebellows in her angry shocks the sea's repulsive roar;
With such sounds gave the Trojans charge, so was their charge repressed.
One mind filled all Greeks, good brass shields close couched to every breast,
And on their bright helms Jove poured down a mighty deal of night
To hide Patroclus, whom alive, and when he was the knight
Of that grandchild of ^Eacus, Saturnius did not hate,
Nor dead would see him dealt to dogs, and so did instigate
His fellows to his worthy guard. At first the Trojans drave
The black-eyed Grecians from the corse, but not a blow they gave
That came at death. A while they hung about the body's heels,
The Greeks quite gone. But all that while did Ajax whet the steels
Of all his forces, that cut back way to the corse again.
Brave Ajax (that for form and fact passed all that did maintain
The Grecian fame, next Thetis' son) now flew before the first.
And as a sort of dogs and youths are by a boar disperst
About a mountain; so fled these from mighty Ajax, all
That stood in conflict for the corse, who thought no chance could fall
Betwixt them and the prize at Troy, for bold Hippothous,
Lethus, Pelasgus' famous son, was so adventurous
That he would stand to bore the corse about the ankle-bone,
Where all the nervy fihres meet and ligaments in one,
That make the motion of those parts; through which he did convey
The thong or hawdrick of his shield, and so was drawing away
All thanks from Hector and his friends; but in their stead he drew.
An ill that no man could avert, for Telamonius threw
A lance that struck quite through his helm, his brain came leaping out;
Down fell Letheides, and with him the body's hoisted foot.
Far from Larissa's soil he fell; a little time allowed
To his industrious spirits to quit the benefits bestowed
By his kind parents. But his wreak Priamides assayed,
And threw at Ajax; but his dart, discovered, passed, and stayed
At Schedius, son of Iphitus, a man of ablest hand
Of all the strong Phocensians, and lived with great command
In Panopeus. The fell dart fell through his channel-bone,
Pierced through his shoulder's upper part, and set his spirit gone.
When after his another flew, the same hand giving wing
To martial Phorcis' startled soul, that was the after spring
Of Phoenops' seed. The javelin strook his curets through, and tore
The bowels from the belly's midst. His fall made those before
Give back a little, Hector's self enforced to turn his face.
And then the Greeks bestowed their shouts, took vantage of the chace,
Drew off, and spoiled Hippothous and Phorcis of their arms.
And then ascended Ilion had shaken with alarms,
Discovering th' impotence of Troy, even past the will of Jove,
And by the proper force of Greece, had Phoebus failed to move
JEneas in similitude of Periphas (the son
Of grave Epytes) king at arms, and had good service done
To old Anchises, being wise, and even with him in years.
But, like this man, the far-seen God to Venus' son appears,
And asked him how he would maintain steep Ilion in her height
In spite of Gods, as he presumed, when men approved so slight
All his presumptions, and all theirs that puffed him with that pride,
Believing in their proper strengths, and generally supplied
With such unfrighted multitudes? But he well knew that Jove,
Besides their self-conceits, sustained their forces with more love
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Than theirs of Greece, and yet all that lacked power to hearten them.
.ZEneas knew the God, and said : " It was a shame extreme,
That those of Greece should beat them so, and by their cowardice,
Not want of man's aid nor the Gods'; and this before his eyes
A Deity stood even now and vouched, affirming Jove their aid;
And so bade Hector and the rest, to whom all this he said,
Turn head, and not in that quick ease part with the corse to Greece."
This said, before them all he flew, and all as of a piece
Against the Greeks flew. Venus' son Leocritus did end,
Son of Arisbas, and had place of Lycomedes' friend,
Whose fall he friendly pitied, and, in revenge, bestowed
A lance that Apisaon struck so sore that straight he strowed
The dusty centre, and did stick in that congealed blood
That forms the liver. Second man he was to all that stood
In name for arms amongst the troop that from Pseonia came,
Asteropaeus being the first, -who was in ruth the same
That Lycomedes was; like whom, he put forth for- the wreak
Of his slain friend, but wrought it not, because he could not break
The bulwark made of Grecian shields and bristled wood of spears
Combined about the body slain. Amongst whom Ajax bears
The greatest labour, every way exhorting to abide,
And no man fly the corse a foot, nor break their ranks in pride
Of any foremost daring spirit, but each foot hold his stand,
And use the closest fight they could. And this was the command
Of mighty Ajax; which observed, they steeped the earth in blood.
The Trojans and their friends fell thick. Nor all the Grecians stood
(Though far the fewer suffered fate) for ever they had care
To shun confusion, and the toil that still oppresseth there.
So set they all the field on fire; with which you would have thought
The sun and moon had been put out, in such a smoke they fought
About the person of the prince. But all the field beside
Fought underneath a lightsome heaven; the sun was in his pride,
And such expansure of his beams he thrust out of his throne,
That not a vapour durst appear in all that region,
No, not upon the highest hill. There fought they still and breathed,
Shunned danger, cast their darts aloof, and not a sword unsheathed.
The other plied it, and the war and night plied them as well,
The cruel steel afflicting all; the strongest did not dwell