510 At once Idomeneus called out to brilliant Nestor:
“Nestor, son of Neleus, great glory of the Achaians,
quick, get up on your chariot, let Machaon beside you
mount, and steer your single-foot horses to the ships in all speed.
A healer is a man worth many men in his knowledge
515 of cutting out arrows and putting kindly medicines on wounds.”
He spoke, and the Gerenian horseman Nestor obeyed him.
Immediately he mounted the chariot, and Machaon,
son of the great healer Asklepios, mounted beside him.
He lashed on the horses, and they winged their way unreluctant
520 back toward the hollow ships, since this was the way they desired.
Now Kebriones, who saw how the Trojans were being driven,
and who stood beside Hektor in the chariot, spoke a word to him:
“Hektor, you and I encounter the Danaäns at the utmost
edge of the sorrowful battle, but meanwhile the rest of the Trojans
525 are driven pell-mell upon each other, the men and their horses.
The Telamonian Aias drives them; I know him surely
for he carries the broad shield on his shoulders. So, let us also
steer our horses and chariot that way, since there the horsemen
and the foot-ranks more than elsewhere hurling the wicked war-hate
530 against each other, are destroying, and the ceaseless clamor has risen.”
So he spoke, and lashed forward the bright-maned horses
with the singing whip, and they at the feel of the stroke lightly
carried the running chariot among Achaians and Trojans,
trampling down dead men and shields, and the axle under
535 the chariot was all splashed with blood and the rails which encircled
the chariot, struck by flying drops from the feet of the horses,
from the running rims of the wheels. So Hektor was straining to plunge in
the turmoil of men, and charge them and break them. He hurled the confusion
of disaster upon the Danaäns, and stayed from the spear’s stroke
540 little, but with his spear and his sword and with huge stones flung
ranged about among the ranks of the rest of the fighters
yet kept clear still of the attack of Telamonian Aias.
But Zeus father who sits on high drove fear upon Aias.
He stood stunned, and swung the sevenfold ox-hide shield behind him
545 and drew back, throwing his eyes round the crowd of men, like a wild beast,
turning on his way, shifting knee past knee only a little;
as when the men who live in the wild and their dogs have driven
a tawny lion away from the mid-fenced ground of their oxen,
and will not let him tear out the fat of the oxen, watching
550 nightlong against him, and he in his hunger for meat closes in
but can get nothing of what he wants, for the raining javelins
thrown from the daring hands of the men beat ever against him,
and the flaming torches, and these he balks at for all of his fury
and with the daylight goes away, disappointed of desire;
555 so Aias, disappointed at heart, drew back from the Trojans
much unwilling, but feared for the ships of the Achaians. As when
a donkey, stubborn and hard to move, goes into a cornfield
in despite of boys, and many sticks have been broken upon him,
but he gets in and goes on eating the deep grain, and the children
560 beat him with sticks, but their strength is infantile; yet at last
by hard work they drive him out when he is glutted with eating;
so the high-hearted Trojans and companions in arms gathered
from far places kept after great Aias, the son of Telamon,
stabbing always with their spears at the center of the great shield.
565 And now Aias would remember again his furious valor
and turn upon them, and beat back the battalions of Trojans,
breakers of horses, and then again would turn and run from them.
He blocked them all from making their way on to the fast ships
and himself stood and fought on in the space between the Achaians
570 and Trojans, and of the spears thrown by the daring hands of the fighters
some that were driven forward stuck fast in the great shield, others
and many in the mid space before they had got to his white skin
stood fast in the ground, though they had been straining to reach his body.
Now as Eurypylos the glorious son of Euaimon
575 saw how Aias was being overpowered by the dense spears,
he came and stood beside him and made a cast with his bright spear
and struck Apisaon, son of Phausias, shepherd of the people,
in the liver under the midriff, and at once took the strength from his knees.
Eurypylos springing forward stripped the armor from his shoulders
580 but godlike Alexandros watched him as he was stripping
the armor of Apisaon, and at once drew his bow, and shot
at Eurypylos, and hit him in the right thigh with the arrow,
and the reed shaft was broken off, and his thigh was heavy with pain.
To avoid death he shrank into the host of his own companions.
585 He lifted his voice and called in a piercing cry to the Danaäns:
“Friends, O leaders and men of counsel among the Argives,
turn again and stand and beat off the pitiless death-day
from Aias, who is being overpowered with spears thrown; and I think
he cannot escape out of this sorrowful battle. Therefore
590 stand fast and face them around great Aias, the son of Telamon.”
So spoke wounded Eurypylos, and the others about him
stood in their numbers and sloped their shields over his shoulders, holding
the spears away, and Aias came back to join them. He turned
and stood, when he had got back to the swarm of his own companions.
595 So they fought on in the likeness of blazing fire. And meanwhile
the horses of Neleus sweating carried Nestor away from
the fighting, and carried also the shepherd of the people, Machaon.
Now swift-footed brilliant Achilleus saw him and watched him,
for he was standing on the stern of his huge-hollowed vessel
600 looking out over the sheer war work and the sorrowful onrush.
At once he spoke to his own companion in arms, Patroklos,
calling from the ship, and he heard it from inside the shelter, and came out
like the war god, and this was the beginning of his evil.
The strong son of Menoitios spoke first, and addressed him:
605 “What do you wish with me, Achilleus? Why do you call me?”
Then in answer again spoke Achilleus of the swift feet:
“Son of Menoitios, you who delight my heart, O great one,
now I think the Achaians will come to my knees and stay there
in supplication, for a need past endurance has come to them.
610 But go now, Patroklos beloved of Zeus, to Nestor
and ask him who is this wounded man he brings in from the fighting.
Indeed, seeing him from behind I thought he was like Machaon,
Asklepios’ son, in all ways, but I got no sight of the man’s face
since the horses were tearing forward and swept on by me.”
615 So he spoke, and Patroklos obeyed his beloved companion
and went on the run along the shelters and ships of the Achaians.
Now when the others came to the shelter of the son of Neleus,
they themselves dismounted to the prospering earth, and the henchman
Eurymedo
n unharnessed the horses of the old man
620 from the chariot. The men wiped off the sweat on their tunics
and stood to the wind beside the beach of the sea, and thereafter
went inside the shelter and took their places on settles.
And lovely-haired Hekamede made them a potion, she whom
the old man won from Tenedos, when Achilleus stormed it.
625 She was the daughter of great-hearted Arsinoös. The Achaians
chose her out for Nestor, because he was best of them all in counsel.
First she pushed up the table in front of them, a lovely
table, polished and with feet of cobalt, and on it
she laid a bronze basket, with onion to go with the drinking,
630 and pale honey, and beside it bread, blessed pride of the barley,
and beside it a beautifully wrought cup which the old man brought with him
from home. It was set with golden nails, the eared handles upon it
were four, and on either side there were fashioned two doves
of gold, feeding, and there were double bases beneath it.
635 Another man with great effort could lift it full from the table,
but Nestor, aged as he was, lifted it without strain.
In this the woman like the immortals mixed them a potion
with Pramneian wine, and grated goat’s-milk cheese into it
with a bronze grater, and scattered with her hand white barley into it.
640 When she had got the potion ready, she told them to drink it,
and both when they had drunk it were rid of their thirst’s parching
and began to take pleasure in conversation, talking with each other,
and Patroklos came and stood, a godlike man, in the doorway.
Seeing him the old man started up from his shining
645 chair, and took him by the hand, led him in and told him to sit down,
but Patroklos from the other side declined, and spoke to him:
“No chair, aged sir beloved of Zeus. You will not persuade me.
Honored, and quick to blame, is the man who sent me to find out
who was this wounded man you were bringing. Now I myself
650 know, and I see it is Machaon, the shepherd of the people.
Now I go back as messenger to Achilleus, to tell him.
You know yourself, aged sir beloved of Zeus, how he is;
a dangerous man; he might even be angry with one who is guiltless.”
Then in turn the Gerenian horseman Nestor answered him:
655 “Now why is Achilleus being so sorry for the sons of the Achaians
who have been wounded with spears thrown, he who knows nothing
of the sorrow that has risen along the host, since the bravest
are lying up among the ships with arrow or spear wounds
The son of Tydeus, strong Diomedes, was hit by an arrow,
660 and Odysseus has a pike wound, and Agamemnon the spear-famed,
and Eurypylos has been wounded in the thigh with an arrow. And even now
I have brought this other one, Machaon, out of the fighting
hit by an arrow from the bowstring. Meanwhile Achilleus
brave as he is cares nothing for the Danaäns nor pities them.
665 Is he going to wait then till the running ships by the water
are burned with consuming fire for all the Argives can do, till
we ourselves are killed one after another? Since there is not
any longer in my gnarled limbs the strength that there once was.
If only I were young now, and the strength still steady within me,
670 as that time when a quarrel was made between us and the Eleians
over a driving of cattle, when I myself killed Itymoneus,
the brave son of Hypeirochos who made his home in Elis.
I was driving cattle in reprisal, and he, as he was defending
his oxen, was struck among the foremost by a spear thrown from my hand
675 and fell, and his people who live in the wild fled in terror about him.
And we got and drove off together much spoil from this pastureland:
fifty herds of oxen, as many sheepflocks, as many
droves of pigs, and again as many wide-ranging goatflocks,
and a hundred and fifty brown horses, mares all of them
680 and many with foals following underneath. And all there
we drove inside the keep of Neleian Pylos, making
our way nightwise to the town. And Neleus was glad in his heart
that so much had come my way, who was young to go to the fighting.
And next day as dawn showed the heralds lifted their clear cry
685 for all to come who had anything owed them in shining Elis.
And the men who were chiefs among the Pylians assembling
divided the spoil. There were many to whom the Epeians owed something
since we in Pylos were few and we had been having the worst of it.
For Herakles had come in his strength against us and beaten us
690 in the years before, and all the bravest among us had been killed.
For we who were sons of lordly Neleus had been twelve, and now
I alone was left of these, and all the others had perished,
and grown haughty over this the bronze-armored Epeians
despised and outraged us, and devised wicked actions against us.
695 Now the old man took for himself a herd of cattle and a big flock
of sheep, choosing out three hundred of them along with the shepherds;
for indeed a great debt was owing to him in shining Elis.
It was four horses, race-competitors with their own chariot,
who were on their way to a race and were to run for a tripod,
700 but Augeias the lord of men took these, and kept them
and sent away their driver who was vexed for the sake of the horses.
Now aged Neleus, angry over things said and things done,
took a vast amount for himself, and gave the rest to the people
to divide among them, so none might go away without a just share.
705 So we administered all this spoil, and all through the city
wrought sacrifices to the gods; and on the third day the Epeians
came all against us, numbers of men and single-foot horses
in full haste, and among them were armored the two Moliones,
boys still, not yet altogether skilled in furious fighting.
710 There is a city, Thryoessa, a headlong hill town
far away by the Alpheios at the bottom of sandy Pylos.
They had thrown their encampment about that place, furious to smash it.
But when they had swept the entire plain, Athene came running
to us, a messenger from Olympos by night, and warned us
715 to arm. It was no hesitant host she assembled in Pylos
but people straining hard toward the battle. Now Neleus would not
let me be armed among them, and had hidden away my horses
because he thought I was not yet skilled in the work of warfare.
Even so I was pre-eminent among our own horsemen
720 though I went on foot; since thus Athene guided the battle.
There is a river, Minyeïos, which empties its water
in the sea beside Arene. There we waited for the divine Dawn,
we horsemen among the Pylians, and the hordes of the streaming foot-soldiers,
and from there having armed in all speed and formed in our armor
725 we came by broad daylight to the sacred stream of Alpheios.
There we wrought fine sacrifices to Zeus in his great strength
and sacrificed a bull to Alpheios, a bull to Poseidon,
but to Athene of the gray eyes a cow from the herds. Then
we took our dinner along the host in divided watches
> 730 and went to sleep, each man in his own armor, by the current
of the river, and meanwhile the high-hearted Epeians
had taken their places around the city, furious to smash it.
But sooner than this there was shown forth a great work of the war god,
for when the sun in his shining lifted above the earth, then
735 we joined our battle together, with prayers to Zeus and Athene.
Now when the battle came on between Pylians and Epeians,
I was first to kill a man, and I won his single-foot horses.
It was Moulios the spearman who was son-in-law to Augeias
and had as wife his eldest daughter, fair-haired Agamede
740 who knew of all the medicines that are grown in the broad earth.
As he came on I threw and hit him with the bronze-headed spear
and he dropped in the dust, whereupon I springing into his chariot
took my place among the champions, as the high-hearted Epeians
fled one way and another in terror when they saw the man fall
745 who was leader of their horsemen and the best of them all in fighting.
Then I charged upon them like a black whirlwind, and overtook
fifty chariots, and for each of the chariots two men
caught the dirt in their teeth beaten down under my spear.
And now I would have killed the young Moliones, scions
750 of Aktor, had not their father who shakes the earth in his wide strength
caught them out of the battle, shrouding them in a thick mist.
Then Zeus gave huge power into the hands of the Pylians,
for we chased them on over the hollow plain, killing
the men themselves, and picking up their magnificent armor
755 until we brought our horses to Bouprasion of the wheatfields
and the Olenian rock, where there is a hill called the hill
of Alesios. There at last Athene turned back our people.
There I killed my last man and left him. There the Achaians
steered back from Bouprasion to Pylos their fast-running horses,
760 and all glorified Zeus among the gods, but among men Nestor.
That was I, among men, if it ever happened. But Achilleus
will enjoy his own valor in loneliness, though I think
he will weep much, too late, when his people are perished from him.
Dear child, surely this was what Menoitios told you
765 that day when he sent you out from Phthia to Agamemnon.
We two, brilliant Odysseus and I, were inside with you
and listened carefully to everything, all that he told you.
The Iliad of Homer Page 36