The Iliad

by Robert Fagels

  as the blood-price for Patroclus’ death, Menoetius’ son.

  He dragged them up on the banks, dazed like fawns,

  lashed their hands behind them with well-cut straps—

  their own belts that cinched their billowing war-shirts—

  gave them to friends to lead away to the beaked ships

  and back he whirled, insane to hack more flesh.

  And first he met a son of Dardan Priam

  just escaping the rapids—Lycaon, the very man

  Achilles seized himself, once on a midnight raid,

  and hauled from his father’s orchard, resisting all the way.

  He was pruning a young fig with his sharp bronze hook,

  cutting green branches to bend for chariot-rails

  when a sudden blow came down on him in the dark—

  the grim marauder Achilles. That was the time

  he shipped him to Lemnos fortress, sold him off

  and the son of Jason paid the price for the slave,

  but a stranger there released him from his chains,

  Eetion out of Imbros paid a princely ransom

  and sent him off to Arisbe’s shining walls.

  From there he slipped away to his father’s house,

  struggling home from Lemnos, but only eleven days

  he cheered his heart with friends. Then on the twelfth

  some god cast him into Achilles’ hands again

  and now he would send him off on a new journey,

  resisting all the way to the House of Death.

  The swift runner recognized him at once—

  disarmed, no shield, no helmet, no spear left,

  he’d scattered all his gear on the bank, sweating,

  clambering out of the ford exhausted, knees buckling ...

  Achilles, filled with rage, addressed his own great heart:

  “By heaven, an awesome miracle right before my eyes!

  These gallant, die-hard Trojans, even those I’ve killed,

  they’ll all come rising back from the western gloom!

  Look at this fellow here, back he comes again,

  fleeing his fatal day—

  and I’d sold him off as a slave in holy Lemnos

  but the heaving gray salt sea can’t hold him back,

  though it stops whole fleets of men who buck its tides.

  Let’s try again—this time he’ll taste my spearpoint.

  Now we’ll see, once and for all we’ll know

  if he returns as fast from his newest destination—

  or the firm life-giving earth can hold him down,

  the grave that hugs the strongest man alive.”

  Waiting,

  plotting, the other stumbling toward him, stunned,

  wild to grasp his knees, wild with all his heart

  to escape his death and grueling black fate

  as the great Achilles raised his massive spear,

  wild to run him through—

  He ducked, ran under the hurl

  and seized Achilles’ knees as the spear shot past his back

  and stuck in the earth, still starved for human flesh.

  And begging now, one hand clutching Achilles’ knees,

  the other gripping the spear, holding for dear life,

  Lycaon burst out with a winging prayer: “Achilles!

  I hug your knees—mercy!—spare my life!

  I am your suppliant, Prince, you must respect me!

  Yours was the first bread I broke, Demeter’s gift,

  that day you seized me in Priam’s well-fenced orchard,

  hauled me away from father, loved ones, sold me off

  in holy Lemnos and I, I fetched you a hundred bulls—

  and once released I brought three times that price.

  And it’s just twelve days that I’ve been home in Troy—

  all I’ve suffered! But now, again, some murderous fate

  has placed me in your hands, your prisoner twice over—

  Father Zeus must hate me, giving me back to you!

  Ah, to a short life you bore me, mother—mother,

  she was Laothoë, aged Altes’ daughter ...

  Altes who rules the Leleges always keen for war,

  who holds the Pedasus heights along the Satniois—

  and Priam wed his daughter, with many other wives,

  and she produced two sons, and you, you’ll butcher both!

  One you killed in the ranks of frontline fighters,

  noble Polydorus, ran him down with your lance

  and a gruesome death awaits me here and now—

  no hope of escape for me, from your clutches,

  not when destiny drives me up against you.

  Listen, this too—take it to heart, I beg you—

  don’t kill me! I’m not from the same womb as Hector,

  Hector who killed your friend, your strong, gentle friend!”

  So the illustrious son of Priam begged for life

  but only heard a merciless voice in answer: “Fool,

  don’t talk to me of ransom. No more speeches.

  Before Patroclus met his day of destiny, true,

  it warmed my heart a bit to spare some Trojans:

  droves I took alive and auctioned off as slaves.

  But now not a single Trojan flees his death,

  not one the gods hand over to me before your gates,

  none of all the Trojans, sons of Priam least of all!

  Come, friend, you too must die. Why moan about it so?

  Even Patroclus died, a far, far better man than you.

  And look, you see how handsome and powerful I am?

  The son of a great man, the mother who gave me life

  a deathless goddess. But even for me, I tell you,

  death and the strong force of fate are waiting.

  There will come a dawn or sunset or high noon

  when a man will take my life in battle too—

  flinging a spear perhaps

  or whipping a deadly arrow off his bow.”

  At that

  Lycaon’s knees gave way on the spot, his heart too.

  He let go of the spear, he sank back down ...

  spreading both arms wide. Drawing his sharp sword

  Achilles struck his collarbone just beside the neck

  and the two-edged blade drove home, plunging to the hilt—

  and down on the ground he sprawled, stretched facefirst

  and dark blood pouring out of him drenched the earth.

  Achilles grabbed a foot, slung him into the river,

  washed away downstream as he cried above him

  savage words to wing him on his way: “There—

  lie there! Make your bed with the fishes now,

  they’ll dress your wound and lick it clean of blood—

  so much for your last rites! Nor will your mother

  lay your corpse on a bier and mourn her darling son—

  whirling Scamander will roll you down the sea’s broad bosom!

  And many a fish, leaping up through the waves, breaking

  the cold ripples shivering dark will dart and bolt

  Lycaon’s glistening fat! Die, Trojans, die—

  till I butcher all the way to sacred Troy—

  run headlong on, I’ll hack you from behind!

  Nothing can save you now—

  not even your silver-whirling, mighty-tiding river—

  not for all the bulls you’ve slaughtered to it for years,

  the rearing stallions drowned alive in its eddies ... die!—

  even so—writhing in death till all you Trojans pay

  for Patroclus’ blood and the carnage of Achaeans

  killed by the racing ships when I was out of action!”

  The more he vaunted the more the river’s anger rose,

  churning at heart for a way to halt his rampage,

  godlike Achilles, and stop the Trojans’ rout.

  But now Pelides shaking his long-
shadowed spear

  was charging Asteropaeus, mad to cut him down—

  Pelegon’s son, himself a son of the Axius River

  broad and fast and Acessamenus’ eldest daughter,

  Periboea, loved by the deep-swirling stream.

  Achilles went for Asteropaeus fresh from the ford,

  braced to face him there and brandishing two spears

  and the Xanthus filled the Trojan’s heart with courage,

  the river seething for all the youths Achilles slaughtered,

  chopped to bits in its tide without a twinge of pity.

  Closing against each other, just about in range,

  the magnificent runner Achilles opened up,

  “Who on earth are you? Where do you hail from?—

  you with the gall to go against my onslaught.

  Pity the ones whose sons stand up to me in war!”

  But the noble son of Pelegon answered firmly,

  “High-hearted son of Peleus, why ask about my birth?

  I hail from Paeonia’s rich soil, a far cry from here,

  heading Paeonian troops with their long spears,

  and this my eleventh day since raising Troy.

  My birth? I come from the Axius’ broad currents—

  Axius floods the land with the clearest stream on earth

  and Axius fathered the famous spearman Pelegon.

  Men say I am his son.

  Now on with it, great Pelides, let us fight!”

  Menacing so

  as brilliant Achilles raised the Pelian ash spear

  but the fighting Asteropaeus, quick, ambidextrous,

  hurled both spears at once—one shaft hit the shield,

  no breakthrough, the shaft could not smash through,

  the gold blocked it, forged in the god’s gift.

  But the other grazed Achilles’ strong right arm

  and dark blood gushed as the spear shot past his back,

  stabbing the earth hard, still lusting to sink in flesh ...

  But next Achilles, burning to cut down Asteropaeus

  hurled his ashen shaft—it flew straight as a die

  but a clean miss—it struck the river’s high bank

  and half the length of the lance stuck deep in soil.

  So Achilles, drawing the sharp sword at his hip,

  sprang at the man in rage as he tried to wrench

  Pelides’ spear from the bank but his grip failed.

  Three times he tried to wrench it free, tugging madly,

  thrice gave up the struggle—the fourth with all his might

  he fought to bend Aeacides’ shaft and break it off

  but before it budged the hero was all over him,

  slashing out his life, slitting his belly open—

  a scooping slice at the navel and all his bowels

  spilled out on the ground, darkness swirled his eyes

  as he gasped his breath away. And trampling his chest

  Achilles tore his gear off, glorying over him now:

  “Lie there with the dead! Punishing work, you see,

  to fight the sons of invincible Cronus’ son,

  even sprung from a river as you are! You—

  you claimed your birth from a river’s broad stream?

  Well I can boast my birth from powerful Zeus himself!

  My father’s the man who rules the hordes of Myrmidons,

  Peleus, son of Aeacus, and Aeacus sprang from Zeus

  and as Zeus is stronger than rivers surging out to sea,

  so the breed of Zeus is stronger than any stream’s.

  Here is a great river flowing past you, look—

  what help can he give you? None!

  Nothing can fight the son of Cronus, Zeus,

  not even Achelous king of rivers vies with Zeus,

  not even the overpowering Ocean’s huge high tides,

  the source of all the rivers and all the seas on earth

  and all springs and all deep wells—all flow from the Ocean

  but even the Ocean shrinks from the mighty Father’s bolt

  when terrible thunder crashes down the skies!”

  With that

  Achilles pulled his bronze spear from the river bluff

  and left him there, the Trojan’s life slashed out,

  sprawled in the sand, drenched by the black tide—

  eels and fish the corpse’s frenzied attendants

  ripping into him, nibbling kidney-fat away.

  But Achilles went for Paeonians, helmets plumed,

  still running in panic along the river’s rapids

  once they saw their finest fall in the onslaught,

  beaten down by Pelides’ hands and hacking sword.

  He killed in a blur of kills—Thersilochus, Mydon,

  Astypylus, Mnesus, Thrasius, Aenius and Ophelestes—

  still more Paeonian men the runner would have killed

  if the swirling river had not risen, crying out in fury,

  taking a man’s shape, its voice breaking out of a whirlpool:

  “Stop. Achilles! Greater than any man on earth,

  greater in outrage too—

  for the gods themselves are always at your side!

  But if Zeus allows you to kill off all the Trojans,

  drive them out of my depths at least, I ask you,

  out on the plain and do your butchery there.

  All my lovely rapids are crammed with corpses now,

  no channel in sight to sweep my currents out to sacred sea—

  I’m choked with corpses and still you slaughter more,

  you blot out more! Leave me alone, have done—

  captain of armies, I am filled with horror!”

  And the breakneck runner only paused to answer,

  “So be it, Scamander sprung of Zeus—as you command.

  But I, I won’t stop killing these overweening Trojans,

  not till I’ve packed them in their walls and tested Hector,

  strength against strength—he kills me or I kill him!”

  Down on the Trojan front he swept like something superhuman

  and now from his deep whirls the river roared to Phoebus,

  “Disgrace—god of the silver bow and born of Zeus!

  You throw to the winds the will of Cronus’ son—

  time and again Zeus gave you strict commands:

  Stand by the Trojan ranks and save their lives

  till the sun goes down at last and darkness shrouds

  the plowlands ripe with grain!”

  When he heard that

  Achilles the famous spearman, leaping down from the bluff,

  plunged in the river’s heart and the river charged against him,

  churning, surging, all his rapids rising in white fury

  and drove the mass of corpses choking tight his channel,

  the ruck Achilles killed—Scamander heaved them up

  and bellowing like a bull the river flung them out

  on the dry land but saved the living, hiding them down

  the fresh clear pools of his thundering whirling current

  but thrashing over Achilles’ shoulders raised a killer-wave—