The Iliad

by Robert Fagels

  But even now,

  late as it is, you could tell your Achilles all this

  and your fiery friend might listen. Who knows?

  With a god’s help you just might rouse him now,

  bring his fighting spirit round at last.

  The persuasion of a comrade has its powers.

  But if down deep some prophecy makes him balk,

  some doom his noble mother revealed to him from Zeus,

  at least let Achilles send Patroclus into battle.

  Let the whole Myrmidon army follow your command—

  you might bring some light of victory to our Argives!

  And let him give you his own fine armor to wear in war

  so the Trojans might take you for him, Patroclus, yes,

  hold off from attack, and Achaea’s fighting sons

  get second wind, exhausted as they are ...

  Breathing room in war is all too brief.

  You’re fresh, unbroken. They’re bone-weary from battte—

  you could roll those broken Trojans back to Troy,

  clear of our ships and shelters!”

  So old Nestor urged

  and the fighting spirit leapt inside Patrocius—

  he dashed back by the ships toward Achilles.

  But sprinting close to King Odysseus’ fleet

  where the Argives met and handed down their laws,

  the grounds where they built their altars to the gods,

  there he met Eurypylus, Euaemon’s gallant son,

  wounded, the arrow planted deep in his thigh,

  and limping out of battle ...

  The sweat was streaming down his face and back

  and the dark blood still flowed from his ugly wound

  but the man’s will was firm, he never broke his stride.

  And moved at the sight, the good soldier Patroclus

  burst out in grief with a flight of winging words,

  “Poor men! Lords of the Argives, O my captains!

  How doomed you are, look—far from your loved ones

  and native land—to glut with your shining fat

  the wild dogs of battle here in Troy ...

  But come, tell me, Eurypylus, royal fighter,

  can the Achaeans, somehow, still hold monstrous Hector?—

  or must they all die now, beaten down by his spear?”

  Struggling with his wound, Eurypylus answered,

  “No hope, Patroclus, Prince. No bulwark left.

  They’ll all be hurled back to the black ships.

  All of them, all our best in the old campaigns

  are laid up in the hulls, they’re hit by arrows,

  pierced by spears, brought down by Trojan hands

  while the Trojans’ power keeps on rising, rising!

  Save me at least. Take me back to my black ship.

  Cut this shaft from my thigh. And the dark blood—

  wash it out of the wound with clear warm water.

  And spread the soothing, healing salves across it,

  the powerful drugs they say you learned from Achilles

  and Chiron the most humane of Centaurs taught your friend.

  And as for our own healers, Podalirius and Machaon,

  one is back in the shelters, wounded, I think—

  Machaon needs a good strong healer himself,

  he’s racked with pain. The other’s still afield,

  standing up to the Trojans’ slashing onslaught.”

  The brave son of Menoetius answered quickly,

  “Impossible. Eurypylus, hero, what shall we do?

  I am on my way with a message for Achilles,

  our great man of war—the plan that Nestor,

  Achaea’s watch and ward, urged me to report.

  But I won’t neglect you, even so, with such a wound.”

  And bracing the captain, arm around his waist,

  he helped him toward his shelter. An aide saw them

  and put some oxhides down. Patroclus stretched him out,

  knelt with a knife and cut the sharp, stabbing arrow

  out of Eurypylus’ thigh and washed the wound clean

  of the dark running blood with clear warm water.

  Pounding it in his palms, he crushed a bitter root

  and covered over the gash to kill his comrade’s pain,

  a cure that fought off every kind of pain ...

  and the wound dried and the flowing blood stopped

  BOOK TWELVE

  The Trojans Storm the Rampart

  And so under shelter now Menoetius’ fighting son

  was healing Eurypylus’ wounds. But hordes of men fought on,

  the Achaean and Trojan infantry going hand-to-hand.

  The Argive trench could not hold out much longer,

  nor could the rampart rearing overhead, the wide wall

  they raised to defend the ships and the broad trench

  they drove around it all—they never gave the gods

  the splendid sacrifice the immortals craved,

  that the fortress might protect the fast ships

  and the bulking plunder heaped behind its shield.

  Defying the deathless gods they built that wall

  and so it stood there steadfast no long time.

  While Hector still lived and Achilles raged on

  and the warlord Priam’s citadel went unstormed,

  so long the Achaeans’ rampart stood erect.

  But once the best of the Trojan captains fell,

  and many Achaeans died as well while some survived,

  and Priam’s high walls were stormed in the tenth year

  and the Argives set sail for the native land they loved—

  then, at last, Poseidon and Lord Apollo launched their plan

  to smash the rampart, flinging into it all the rivers’ fury.

  All that flow from the crests of Ida down to breaking surf,

  the Rhesus and the Heptaporus, Caresus and the Rhodius,

  Grenicus and Aesepus, and the shining god Scamander

  and Simois’ tides where tons of oxhide shields

  and homed helmets tumbled deep in the river silt

  and a race of men who seemed half god, half mortal.

  The channels of all those rivers-Apollo swung them round

  into one mouth and nine days hurled their flood against the wall

  and Zeus came raining down, cloudburst powering cloudburst,

  the faster to wash that rampart out to open sea.

  The Earth-shaker himself, trident locked in his grip,

  led the way, rocking loose, sweeping up in his breakers

  all the bastion’s strong supports of logs and stones

  the Achaeans prized in place with grueling labor ...

  He made all smooth along the rip of the Hellespont

  and piled the endless beaches deep in sand again

  and once he had leveled the Argives’ mighty wall

  he turned the rivers flowing back in their beds again

  where their fresh clear tides had run since time began.

  So in the years to come Poseidon and god Apollo

  would set all things to rights once more.

  But now

  the war, the deafening crash of battle blazed

  around the strong-built work, and rampart timbers

  thundered under the heavy blows as Argive fighters

  beaten down by the lash of Zeus were rolled back,

  pinned to their beaked ships in dread of Hector,

  that invincible headlong terror.

  On he fought like a whirlwind, staunch as always—

  think of the hounds and huntsmen circling round

  some lion or boar when the quarry wheels at bay,

  rippling in strength as the men mass like a bastion

  standing up to his charge and hurl their pelting spears

  and the boar’s brave spirit never flinches, never bolts

  and his own raw courage kills him—
time and again

  he wheels around, testing the huntsmen’s ranks

  and where he lunges out the ranks of men give way.

  So Hector lunged into battle, rallying cohorts now,

  spurring them on to cross the gaping trench—

  but his own rearing stallions lacked the nerve.

  They balked, whinnying shrill at the edge, the brink—

  a dead stop—frightened off by the trench so broad

  the team could never leap it, not at a single bound,

  nor could they plunge on through with any ease.

  Steep banks overhung its whole length, jutting up

  on either side and topped by stabbing rows of stakes,

  planted there by the Argives, thickset and huge

  to block the enemy’s onslaught.

  No light work for the teams that trundled chariots

  churning massive wheels to make it through in stride

  but the Trojans strained to bring it off on foot.

  So Polydamas stood by headstrong Hector, warning,

  “Hector—and all our Trojan captains, allies-in-arms!

  It’s madness to drive our teams across that trench,

  impossible to traverse it. Look, the sharp stakes

  jutting right at the edge, and just beyond that

  the Achaeans’ sturdy rampart. No room there

  for charioteers to dismount and fight it out,

  the strait’s too narrow, cramped—

  we’ll take a mauling there, I see it all! so

  If mighty Zeus, thundering up on high, is bent

  on wiping out the Argives, down to the last man,

  if he longs to back our Trojan forces to the hilt,

  by heaven I hope the Father works his will at once

  and the Argives die here, their memory blotted out,

  a world away from Argos!

  But what if they round on us?

  If the Argives roll us back away from the ships,

  trapped and tangled there in the yawning trench,

  no runner, I tell you, pressed by an Argive rally,

  could struggle free and bear the news to Troy.

  So come, do as I say, and let us all unite.

  Drivers, rein your horses hard by the trench—

  the men themselves, armed for assault on foot,

  we all follow Hector, all in a mass attack.

  And the Argives? They cannot hold their line,

  not if the ropes of death are knotted round their necks!“

  So Polydamas urged. His plan won Hector over—

  less danger, more success—and down he leapt

  from his chariot fully armed and hit the ground.

  Nor did the other chariot-drivers hold formation—

  all dismounted, seeing shining Hector leap to earth.

  Each man shouted out commands to his driver, quickly,

  “Rein the team by the trench, good battle-order now!”

  And the fighters split apart and then closed ranks,

  marshaled in five battalions, captains leading each.

  The men who trooped with Hector and Prince Polydamas—

  they were the greatest force, the best and bravest,

  grim set above all the rest to breach the wall

  and go for the beaked ships and fight it out.

  Cebriones followed close, third in command

  since Hector left another to rein his team,

  a driver less than Cebriones, less a fighter.

  The second Trojan battalion Paris led in arms

  with Alcathous and Agenor. Helenus led the third

  with Deiphobus striding on like a god beside him,

  two sons of Priam; captain Asius third in command,

  Asius son of Hyrtacus—hulking, fiery stallions

  bore him in from Arisbe, from the Selleis River.

  The fourth battalion marched with gallant Aeneas,

  Anchises’ offspring flanked by Antenor’s two sons,

  Acamas and Archelochus drilled for every foray.

  Sarpedon marshaled the famous allies, placing Glaucus

  next in command with the combat veteran Asteropaeus,

  head and shoulders the best men, Sarpedon thought,

  after himself of course: he outshone the rest.

  Now shield against oxhide shield, wedging tight,

  with a wild rush they charged the Argives head-on,

  never thinking the Argive line could still hold out—

  they’d all be hurled back on their blackened hulls.

  So all the Trojans and famous friends-in-arms

  embraced Polydamas’ plan, the faultless chieftain.

  But Asius captain of armies, Hyrtacus’ son refused

  to leave his horses there with a driver reining back-

  and on he drove at the fast trim ships, chariot and all,

  the fool. Vaunting along the hulls with team and car

  but never destined to slip past the deadly spirits,

  never to ride in glory home to windswept Troy.

  Long before, his accursed doom blacked him out

  with Idomeneus’ spear, Deucalion’s noble son.

  Now left of the ships he sped where Argive ranks

  would head home from the plain with teams and cars.

  Here Asius flogged his team and chariot hard,

  nor did he find the gates shut, the bolt shot home,

  not yet, the men still held them wide, hoping to save

  some comrade fleeing the onset, racing for the ships.

  Straight at the gates he lashed his team, hell-bent,

  his troops crowding behind him shouting war cries,

  never thinking the Argive line could still hold out—

  they’d all be hurled back on their blackened hulls.

  Idiots. There in the gates they found two men,

  a brace of two great fighters,

  lionhearted sons of the Lapith spearmen,

  one Pirithous’ offspring, rugged Polypoetes,

  the other Leonteus, a match for murderous Ares.

  Both warriors planted there before the towering gates

  rose like oaks that rear their crests on a mountain ridge,

  standing up to the gales and driving rains, day in, day out,

  their giant roots branching, gripping deep in the earth:

  so these two, trusting all to their arms, their power,

  stood up to Asius’ headlong charge and never shrank.

  On the Trojans came, straight for the rock-tight wall,

  raising rawhide shields and yelling their lungs out,

  grouped under captain Asius, Iamenus and Orestes

  and Asius’ own son Adamas, Thoon and Oenomaus.

  The Lapiths had just been rousing Argives packed

  behind the rampart: “Close in a ring—defend the ships!”

  But soon as the Lapiths saw the Trojans storm the wall,

  and cries broke from the Argives lost in sudden panic,

  then the two burst forth to fight before the gates

  like wild boars, a pair of them up on the hilltops

  bracing to take some breakneck rout of men and dogs