by Homer
But fate now conquers; I am hers; and yet not she shall share
In my renown; that life is left to every noble spirit,
And that some great deed shall beget, that all lives shall inherit.’
Thus, forth his sword flew, sharp and broad, and bore a deadly weight,
With which he rush’d in: and look how an eagle from her height
Stoops to the rapture of a lamb, or cuffs a timorous hare:
So fell in Hector, and at him Achilles; his mind’s fare
Was fierce and mighty, his shield cast a sun-like radiance,
Helm nodded, and his four plumes shook; and when he rais’d his lance,
Up Hesperus rose ’mongst th’ evening stars. His bright and sparkling eyes
Look’d through the body of his foe, and sought through all that prise
The next way to his thirsted life. Of all ways, only one
Appear’d to him, and that was where th’ unequal winding bone,
That joins the shoulders and the neck, had place, and where there lay
The speeding way to death, and there his quick eye could display
The place it sought, ev’n through those arms his friend Patroclus wore
When Hector slew him. There he aim’d, and there his javelin tore
Stern passage quite through Hector’s neck; yet miss’d it so his throat,
It gave him pow’r to change some words, but down to earth it got
His fainting body. Then triumph’d divine Aeacides:
‘Hector,’ said he, ‘thy heart suppos’d that in my friend’s decease
Thy life was safe, my absent arm not cared for. Fool! He left
One at the fleet that better’d him, and he it is that reft
Thy strong knees thus: and now the dogs and fowls in foulest use
Shall tear thee up, thy corse expos’d to all the Greeks’ abuse.’
He, fainting, said: ‘Let me implore, ev’n by thy knees and soul,
And thy great parents, do not see a cruelty so foul
Inflicted on me: brass and gold receive at any rate,
And quit my person, that the peers and ladies of our state
May tomb it, and to sacred fire turn thy profane decrees.’
‘Dog,’ he replied, ‘urge not my ruth, by parents, soul, nor knees:
I would to god that any rage would let me eat thee raw,
Sliced into pieces, so beyond the right of any law
I taste thy merits, and believe it flies the force of man
To rescue thy head from the dogs. Give all the gold they can,
If ten or twenty times so much as friends would rate thy price
Were tender’d here, with vows of more, to buy the cruelties
I here have vow’d, and after that thy father with his gold
Would free thyself, all that should fail to let thy mother hold
Solemnities of death with thee, and do thee such a grace
To mourn thy whole corse on a bed; which piecemeal I’ll deface
With fowls and dogs.’ He (dying) said: ‘I (knowing thee well) foresaw
Thy now tried tyranny, nor hop’d for any other law
Of nature, or of nations: and that fear forc’d much more
Than death my flight, which never touch’d at Hector’s foot before:
A soul of iron informs thee; mark what vengeance th’ equal fates
Will give me of thee for this rage, when in the Scaean gates
Phoebus and Paris meet with thee.’ Thus death’s hand clos’d his eyes,
His soul flying his fair limbs to hell, mourning his destinies
To part so with his youth and strength. Thus dead, thus Thetis’ son
His prophecy answer’d: ‘Die thou now; when my short thread is spun,
I’ll bear it as the will of Jove.’ This said, his brazen spear
He drew, and stuck by; then his arms (that all imbrued were)
He spoil’d his shoulders of. Then all the Greeks ran in to him
To see his person, and admir’d his terror-stirring limb;
Yet none stood by that gave no wound to his so goodly form,
When each to other said: ‘O Jove, he is not in the storm
He came to fleet in with his fire, he handles now more soft.’
‘O friends,’ said stern Aeacides, ‘now that the gods have brought
This man thus down, I’ll freely say he brought more bane to Greece
Than all his aiders. Try we then (thus arm’d at every piece,
And girding all Troy with our host) if now their hearts will leave
Their city clear, her clear stay slain, and all their lives receive,
Or hold yet, Hector being no more. But why use I a word
Of any act but what concerns my friend? Dead, undeplor’d,
Unsepulchred, he lies at fleet, unthought on: never hour
Shall make his dead state, while the quick enjoys me, and this pow’r
To move these movers. Though in hell men say that such as die
Oblivion seizeth, yet in hell in me shall Memory
Hold all her forms still of my friend. Now, youths of Greece, to fleet
Bear we this body, paeans sing, and all our navy greet
With endless honour; we have slain Hector, the period
Of all Troy’s glory, to whose worth all vow’d as to a god.’
This said, a work not worthy him he set to: of both feet
He bor’d the nerves through from the heel to th’ ankle, and then knit
Both to his chariot with a thong of whitleather, his head
Trailing the centre. Up he got to chariot, where he laid
The arms repurchas’d, and scourg’d on his horse, that freely flew.
A whirlwind, made of startled dust, drave with them as they drew,
With which were all his black-brown curls knotted in heaps and fil’d.
And there lay Troy’s late gracious, by Jupiter exil’d
To all disgrace in his own land, and by his parents seen.
When (like her son’s head) all with dust Troy’s miserable queen
Distain’d her temples, plucking off her honour’d hair, and tore
Her royal garments, shrieking out. In like kind Priam bore
His sacred person, like a wretch that never saw good day,
Broken with outcries. About both the people prostrate lay,
Held down with clamour, all the town veil’d with a cloud of tears:
Ilion, with all his tops on fire, and all the massacres
Left for the Greeks, could put on looks of no more overthrow
Than now ’fray’d life. And yet the king did all their looks outshow.
The wretched people could not bear his sovereign wretchedness,
Plaguing himself so – thrusting out, and praying all the press
To open him the Dardan ports, that he alone might fetch
His dearest son in; and (all fill’d with rumbling) did beseech
Each man by name, thus: ‘Loved friends, be you content, let me
(Though much ye grieve) be that poor mean to our sad remedy
Now in our wishes; I will go and pray this impious man
(Author of horrors), making proof if age’s reverence can
Excite his pity. His own sire is old like me, and he
That got him to our griefs, perhaps may (for my likeness) be
Mean for our ruth to him. Alas, you have no cause of cares,
Compar’d with me; I many sons, grac’d with their freshest years,
Have lost by him, and all their deaths in slaughter of this one
/> (Afflicted man) are doubled: this will bitterly set gone
My soul to hell. O would to heav’n I could but hold him dead
In these pin’d arms; then tears on tears might fall, till all were shed
In common fortune. Now amaze their natural course doth stop,
And pricks a mad vein.’ Thus he mourn’d, and with him all brake ope
Their store of sorrows. The poor queen amongst the women wept,
Turn’d into anguish: ‘O my son,’ she cried out, ‘why still kept
Patient of horrors is my life when thine is vanished?
My days thou glorifiedst; my nights rung of some honour’d deed
Done by thy virtues – joy to me, profit to all our care.
All made a god of thee, and thou mad’st them all that they are:
Now under fate, now dead. These two thus vented as they could
Their sorrow’s furnace, Hector’s wife not having yet been told
So much as of his stay without: she in her chamber close
Sat at her loom; a piece of work, grac’d with a both sides gloss,
Strew’d curiously with varied flowers, her pleasure was; her care,
To heat a cauldron for her lord, to bathe him turn’d from war,
Of which she chief charge gave her maids. Poor dame, she little knew
How much her cares lack’d of his case. But now the clamour flew
Up to her turret: then she shook, her work fell from her hand,
And up she started, call’d her maids; she needs must understand
That ominous outcry. ‘Come,’ said she, ‘I hear through all this cry
My mother’s voice shriek: to my throat my heart bounds; ecstasy
Utterly alters me: some fate is near the hapless sons
Of fading Priam. Would to god my words’ suspicions
No ear had heard yet. O I fear, and that most heartily,
That with some stratagem the son of Peleus hath put by
The wall of Ilion, my lord, and (trusty of his feet)
Obtain’d the chase of him alone; and now the curious heat
Of his still desperate spirit is cool’d. It let him never keep
In guard of others; before all his violent foot must step,
Or his place forfeited he held.’ Thus fury-like she went,
Two women (as she will’d) at hand, and made her quick ascent
Up to the tow’r and press of men, her spirit in uproar. Round
She cast her greedy eye, and saw her Hector slain, and bound
T’ Achilles chariot, manlessly dragg’d to the Grecian fleet.
Black night struck through her; under her, trance took away her feet,
And back she shrunk, with such a sway, then off her head-tire flew,
Her coronet, caul, ribands, veil, that golden Venus threw
On her white shoulders, that high day when warlike Hector won
Her hand in nuptials in the court of king Eëtion,
And that great dow’r then given with her. About her, on their knees,
Her husband’s sisters, brothers’ wives, fell round, and by degrees
Recover’d her. Then, when again her respirations found
Free pass (her mind and spirit met), these thoughts her words did sound:
‘O Hector! O me, cursed dame! Both born beneath one fate,
Thou here, I in Cilician Thebes, where Placus doth elate
His shady forehead in the court where king Eëtion
(Hapless) begot unhappy me; which would he had not done,
To live past thee: thou now art div’d to Pluto’s gloomy throne,
Sunk through the coverts of the earth: I, in a hell of moan,
Left here thy widow. One poor babe, born to unhappy both,
Whom thou leav’st helpless as he thee; he born to all the wroth
Of woe and labour. Lands left him will others seize upon;
The orphan day of all friends’ helps robs every mother’s son.
An orphan all men suffer sad; his eyes stand still with tears.
Need tries his father’s friends, and fails. Of all his favourers,
If one the cup gives, ’tis not long; the wine he finds in it
Scarce moists his palate: if he chance to gain the grace to sit,
Surviving father’s sons repine, use contumelies, strike,
Bid ‘Leave us; where’s thy father’s place?’ He (weeping with dislike)
Retires to me. To me, alas! Astyanax is he
Born to these miseries. He that late fed on his father’s knee,
To whom all knees bow’d, daintiest fare appos’d him, and when sleep
Lay on his temples, his cries still’d (his heart ev’n laid in steep
Of all things precious), a soft bed, a careful nurse’s arms
Took him to guardiance: but now as huge a world of harms
Lies on his suff’rance; now thou want’st thy father’s hand to friend,
O my Astyanax! O my lord! Thy hand that did defend
These gates of Ilion, these long walls by thy arm measur’d still
Amply and only, yet at fleet thy naked corse must fill
Vile worms when dogs are satiate, far from thy parents’ care;
Far from those funeral ornaments that thy mind would prepare
(So sudden being the chance of arms), ever expecting death:
Which task (though my heart would not serve t’ employ my hands beneath)
I made my women yet perform. Many, and much in price,
Were those integuments they wrought t’ adorn thy exequies;
Which, since they fly thy use, thy corse not laid in their attire,
Thy sacrifice they shall be made; these hands in mischievous fire
Shall vent their vanities. And yet (being consecrate to thee)
They shall be kept for citizens, and their fair wives, to see.’
Thus spake she weeping; all the dames endeavouring to cheer
Her desert state (fearing their own), wept with her tear for tear.
The end of the twenty-second book
Book 23
The Argument
Achilles orders jousts of exequies
For his Patroclus, and doth sacrifice
Twelve Trojan princes, most lov’d hounds and horse,
And other offerings, to the honour’d corse.
He institutes, besides, a funeral game,
Where Diomed, for horse-race, wins the fame;
For foot, Ulysses; others otherwise
Strive, and obtain; and end the exequies.
Another Argument
Psi sings the rites of the decease
Ordain’d by great Aeacides.
Book 23
Thus mourn’d all Troy: but when at fleet, and Hellespontus’ shore,
The Greeks arriv’d, each to his ship, only the conqueror
Kept undispers’d his Myrmidons; and said, ‘Lov’d countrymen,
Disjoin not we chariots and horse, but (bearing hard our rein)
With state of both, march soft and close, and mourn about the corse:
’Tis proper honour to the dead. Then take we out our horse,
When with our friends’ kind woe our hearts have felt delight to do
A virtuous soul right, and then sup.’ This said, all full of woe
Circled the corse. Achilles led, and thrice about him, close
All bore their goodly-coated horse. Amongst all Thetis rose,
And stirr’d up a delight in grief, till all their arms with tears,
And all the sands, were wet: so much they lov’d that lord o
f fears.
Then to the centre fell the prince; and putting in the breast
Of his slain friend his slaught’ring hands, began to all the rest
Words to their tears: ‘Rejoice,’ said he, ‘O my Patroclus, thou
Courted by Dis now: now I pay to thy late overthrow
All my revenges vow’d before; Hector lies slaughter’d here
Dragg’d at my chariot, and our dogs shall all in pieces tear
His hated limbs. Twelve Trojan youths, born of their noblest strains,
I took alive, and (yet enrag’d) will empty all their veins
Of vital spirits, sacrific’d before thy heap of fire.’
This said, (a work unworthy him), he put upon his ire,
And trampled Hector under foot, at his friend’s feet. The rest
Disarm’d, took horse from chariot, and all to sleep address’d
At his black vessel. Infinite were those that rested there.
Himself yet sleeps not, now his spirits were wrought about the cheer
Fit for so high a funeral. About the steel us’d then,
Oxen in heaps lay bellowing, preparing food for men:
Bleating of sheep and goats fill’d air; numbers of white-tooth’d swine
(Swimming in fat) lay singeing there: the person of the slain
Was girt with slaughter. All this done, all the Greek kings convey’d
Achilles to the king of men, his rage not yet allay’d
For his Patroclus. Being arriv’d at Agamemnon’s tent,
Himself bad heralds put to fire a cauldron, and present
The service of it to the prince, to try if they could win
His pleasure to admit their pains to cleanse the blood soak’d in
About his conquering hands and brows. ‘Not by the king of heav’n!’
He swore. ‘The laws of friendship damn this false-heart licence giv’n
To men that lose friends: not a drop shall touch me till I put
Patroclus in the funeral pile, before these curls be cut,
His tomb erected. ’Tis the last of all care I shall take,
While I consort the careful: yet, for your entreaties’ sake,
(And though I loathe food) I will eat: but early in the morn,
Atrides, use your strict command, that loads of wood be borne
To our design’d place, all that fits to light home such a one
As is to pass the shades of death, that fire enough set gone