So he spoke, and with pitiless bronze he cut the boar’s throat.
Talthybios whirled the body about, and threw it in the great reach
of the gray sea, to feed the fishes. Meanwhile Achilleus
stood up among the battle-fond Achaians, and spoke to them:
270 “Father Zeus, great are the delusions with which you visit men.
Without you, the son of Atreus could never have stirred so
the heart inside my breast, nor taken the girl away from me
against my will, and be in helplessness. No, but Zeus somehow
wished that death should befall great numbers of the Achaians.
275 Go now and take your dinner, so we may draw on the battle.”
So he spoke, and suddenly broke up the assembly.
Now these scattered away each man to his own ship. Meanwhile
the great-hearted Myrmidons disposed of the presents.
They went on their way carrying them to the ship of godlike Achilleus,
280 and stowed the gifts in the shelters, and let the women be settled,
while proud henchmen drove the horses into Achilleus’ horse-herd.
And now, in the likeness of golden Aphrodite, Briseis
when she saw Patroklos lying torn with sharp bronze, folding
him in her arms cried shrilly above him and with her hands tore
285 at her breasts and her soft throat and her beautiful forehead.
The woman like the immortals mourning for him spoke to him:
“Patroklos, far most pleasing to my heart in its sorrows,
I left you here alive when I went away from the shelter,
but now I come back, lord of the people, to find you have fallen.
290 So evil in my life takes over from evil forever.
The husband on whom my father and honored mother bestowed me
I saw before my city lying torn with the sharp bronze,
and my three brothers, whom a single mother bore with me
and who were close to me, all went on one day to destruction.
295 And yet you would not let me, when swift Achilleus had cut down
my husband, and sacked the city of godlike Mynes, you would not
let me sorrow, but said you would make me godlike Achilleus’
wedded lawful wife, that you would take me back in the ships
to Phthia, and formalize my marriage among the Myrmidons.
300 Therefore I weep your death without ceasing. You were kind always.”
So she spoke, lamenting, and the women sorrowed around her
grieving openly for Patroklos, but for her own sorrows
each. But the lords of Achaia were gathered about Achilleus
beseeching him to eat, but he with a groan denied them:
305 “I beg of you, if any dear companion will listen
to me, stop urging me to satisfy the heart in me
with food and drink, since this strong sorrow has come upon me.
I will hold out till the sun goes down and endure, though it be hard.”
So he spoke, and caused the rest of the kings to scatter;
310 but the two sons of Atreus stayed with him, and brilliant Odysseus,
and Nestor, and Idomeneus, and the aged charioteer, Phoinix,
comforting him close in his sorrow, yet his heart would not
be comforted, till he went into the jaws of the bleeding battle.
Remembering Patroklos he sighed much for him, and spoke aloud:
315 “There was a time, ill fated, O dearest of all my companions,
when you yourself would set the desirable dinner before me
quickly and expertly, at the time the Achaians were urgent
to carry sorrowful war on the Trojans, breakers of horses.
But now you lie here torn before me, and my heart goes starved
320 for meat and drink, though they are here beside me, by reason
of longing for you. There is nothing worse than this I could suffer,
not even if I were to hear of the death of my father
who now, I think, in Phthia somewhere lets fall a soft tear
for bereavement of such a son, for me, who now in a strange land
325 make war upon the Trojans for the sake of accursed Helen;
or the death of my dear son, who is raised for my sake in Skyros
now, if godlike Neoptolemos is still one of the living.
Before now the spirit inside my breast was hopeful
that I alone should die far away from horse-pasturing Argos
330 here in Troy; I hoped you would win back again to Phthia
so that in a fast black ship you could take my son back
from Skyros to Phthia, and show him all my possessions,
my property, my serving men, my great high-roofed house.
For by this time I think that Peleus must altogether
335 have perished, or still keeps a little scant life in sorrow
for the hatefulness of old age and because he waits ever from me
the evil message, for the day he hears I have been killed.”
So he spoke, mourning, and the elders lamented around him
remembering each those he had left behind in his own halls.
340 The son of Kronos took pity on them as he watched them mourning
and immediately spoke in winged words to Athene:
“My child, have you utterly abandoned the man of your choice?
Is there no longer deep concern in your heart for Achilleus?
Now he has sat down before the steep horned ships and is mourning
345 for his own beloved companion, while all the others
have gone to take their dinner, but he is fasting and unfed.
Go then to him and distil nectar inside his chest, and delicate
ambrosia, so the weakness of hunger will not come upon him.”
Speaking so, he stirred Athene, who was eager before this,
350 and she in the likeness of a wide-winged, thin-crying
hawk plummeted from the sky through the bright air. Now the Achaians
were arming at once along the encampment. She dropped the delicate
ambrosia and the nectar inside the breast of Achilleus
softly, so no sad weakness of hunger would come on his knees,
355 and she herself went back to the close house of her powerful
father, while they were scattering out away from the fast ships.
As when in their thickness the snowflakes of Zeus come fluttering
cold beneath the blast of the north wind born in the bright sky,
so now in their thickness the pride of the helms bright shining
360 were carried out from the ships, and shields massive in the middle
and the corselets strongly hollowed and the ash spears were worn forth.
The shining swept to the sky and all earth was laughing about them
under the glitter of bronze and beneath their feet stirred the thunder
of men, within whose midst brilliant Achilleus helmed him.
365 A clash went from the grinding of his teeth, and his eyes glowed
as if they were the stare of a fire, and the heart inside him
was entered with sorrow beyond endurance. Raging at the Trojans
he put on the gifts of the god, that Hephaistos wrought him with much toil.
First he placed along his legs the fair greaves linked with
370 silver fastenings to hold the greaves at the ankles.
Afterward he girt on about his chest the corselet,
and across his shoulders slung the sword with the nails of silver,
a bronze sword, and caught up the great shield, huge and heavy
next, and from it the light glimmered far, as from the moon.
375 And as when from across water a light shines to mariners
from a blazing fire, when the fire is burning high in the mountains
; in a desolate steading, as the mariners are carried unwilling
by storm winds over the fish-swarming sea, far away from their loved ones;
so the light from the fair elaborate shield of Achilleus
380 shot into the high air. And lifting the helm he set it
massive upon his head, and the helmet crested with horse-hair
shone like a star, the golden fringes were shaken about it
which Hephaistos had driven close along the horn of the helmet.
And brilliant Achilleus tried himself in his armor, to see
385 if it fitted close, and how his glorious limbs ran within it,
and the armor became as wings and upheld the shepherd of the people.
Next he pulled out from its standing place the spear of his father,
huge, heavy, thick, which no one else of all the Achaians
could handle, but Achilleus alone knew how to wield it,
390 the Pelian ash spear which Cheiron had brought to his father
from high on Pelion, to be death for fighters in battle.
Automedon and Alkimos, in charge of the horses,
yoked them, and put the fair breast straps about them, and forced the bits home
between their jaws, and pulled the reins back against the compacted
395 chariot seat, and one, Automedon, took up the shining
whip caught close in his hand and vaulted up to the chariot,
while behind him Achilleus helmed for battle took his stance
shining in all his armor like the sun when he crosses above us,
and cried in a terrible voice on the horses of his father: “
400 Xanthos, Balios, Bay and Dapple, famed sons of Podarge,
take care to bring in another way your charioteer back
to the company of the Danaäns, when we give over fighting,
not leave him to lie fallen there, as you did to Patroklos.”
Then from beneath the yoke the gleam-footed horse answered him,
405 Xanthos, and as he spoke bowed his head, so that all the mane
fell away from the pad and swept the ground by the cross-yoke;
the goddess of the white arms, Hera, had put a voice in him:
“We shall still keep you safe for this time, O hard Achilleus.
And yet the day of your death is near, but it is not we
410 who are to blame, but a great god and powerful Destiny.
For it was not because we were slow, because we were careless,
that the Trojans have taken the armor from the shoulders of Patroklos,
but it was that high god, the child of lovely-haired Leto,
who killed him among the champions and gave the glory to Hektor.
415 But for us, we two could run with the blast of the west wind
who they say is the lightest of all things; yet still for you
there is destiny to be killed in force by a god and a mortal.”
When he had spoken so the Furies stopped the voice in him,
but deeply disturbed, Achilleus of the swift feet answered him: “
420 Xanthos, why do you prophesy my death? This is not for you.
I myself know well it is destined for me to die here
far from my beloved father and mother. But for all that
I will not stop till the Trojans have had enough of my fighting.”
He spoke, and shouting held on in the foremost his single-foot horses.
BOOK TWENTY
So these now, the Achaians, beside the curved ships were arming
around you, son of Peleus, insatiate of battle,
while on the other side at the break of the plain the Trojans
armed. But Zeus, from the many-folded peak of Olympos,
5 told Themis to summon all the gods into assembly. She went
everywhere, and told them to make their way to Zeus’ house.
There was no river who was not there, except only Ocean,
there was not any one of the nymphs who live in the lovely
groves, and the springs of rivers and grass of the meadows, who came not.
10 These all assembling into the house of Zeus cloud gathering
took places among the smooth-stone cloister walks which Hephaistos
had built for Zeus the father by his craftsmanship and contrivance.
So they were assembled within Zeus’ house; and the shaker
of the earth did not fail to hear the goddess, but came up among them
15 from the sea, and sat in the midst of them, and asked Zeus of his counsel:
“Why, lord of the shining bolt, have you called the gods to assembly
once more? Are you deliberating Achaians and Trojans?
For the onset of battle is almost broken to flame between them.”
In turn Zeus who gathers the clouds spoke to him in answer:
20 “You have seen, shaker of the earth, the counsel within me,
and why I gathered you. I think of these men though they are dying.
Even so, I shall stay here upon the fold of Olympos
sitting still, watching, to pleasure my heart. Meanwhile all you others
go down, wherever you may go among the Achaians and Trojans
25 and give help to either side, as your own pleasure directs you.
For if we leave Achilleus alone to fight with the Trojans
they will not even for a little hold off swift-footed Peleion.
For even before now they would tremble whenever they saw him,
and now, when his heart is grieved and angered for his companion’s
30 death, I fear against destiny he may storm their fortress.”
So spoke the son of Kronos and woke the incessant battle,
and the gods went down to enter the fighting, with purposes opposed.
Hera went to the assembled ships with Pallas Athene
and with Poseidon who embraces the earth, and with generous
35 Hermes, who within the heart is armed with astute thoughts.
Hephaistos went the way of these in the pride of his great strength
limping, and yet his shrunken legs moved lightly beneath him.
But Ares of the shining helm went over to the Trojans,
and with him Phoibos of the unshorn hair, and the lady of arrows
40 Artemis, and smiling Aphrodite, Leto, and Xanthos.
Now in the time when the gods were still distant from the mortals,
so long the Achaians were winning great glory, since now Achilleus
showed among them, who had stayed too long from the sorrowful fighting.
But the Trojans were taken every man in the knees with trembling
45 and terror, as they looked on the swift-footed son of Peleus
shining in all his armor, a man like the murderous war god.
But after the Olympians merged in the men’s company
strong Hatred, defender of peoples, burst out, and Athene bellowed
standing now beside the ditch dug at the wall’s outside
50 and now again at the thundering sea’s edge gave out her great cry,
while on the other side Ares in the likeness of a dark stormcloud
bellowed, now from the peak of the citadel urging the Trojans
sharply on, now running beside the sweet banks of Simoeis.
So the blessed gods stirring on the opponents drove them
55 together, and broke out among themselves the weight of their quarrel.
From high above the father of gods and men made thunder
terribly, while Poseidon from deep under them shuddered
all the illimitable earth, the sheer heads of the mountains.
And all the feet of Ida with her many waters were shaken
60 and all her crests, and the city of Troy, the ships of the Achaians.
Aïdoneus, lord of the dead below, was in terror
and sprang from his throne and screamed aloud, for fear that above him
/>
he who circles the land, Poseidon, might break the earth open
and the houses of the dead lie open to men and immortals,
65 ghastly and moldering, so the very gods shudder before them;
such was the crash that sounded as the gods came driving together
in wrath. For now over against the lord Poseidon
Phoibos Apollo took his stand with his feathered arrows,
and against Enyalios the goddess gray-eyed Athene.
70 Against Hera stood the lady of clamor, of the golden distaff,
of the showering arrows, Artemis, sister of the far striker.
Opposite Leto stood the strong one, generous Hermes,
and against Hephaistos stood the great deep-eddying river
who is called Xanthos by the gods, but by mortals Skamandros.
75 Thus gods went on to encounter gods; and meanwhile Achilleus
was straining to plunge into the combat opposite Hektor
Priam’s son, since beyond all others his anger was driving him
to glut with his blood Ares the god who fights under the shield’s guard.
But it was Aineias whom Apollo defender of people
80 drove straight against Peleion, and inspired vast power within him.
Zeus’ son Apollo made his voice like that of Lykaon
Priam’s son, and assumed his appearance, and spoke to Aineias:
“Aineias, lord of the Trojans’ counsels. Where are those threats gone
which as you drank your wine you made before Troy’s kings, solemnly,
85 that you would match your battle strength with Peleian Achilleus?”
In turn Aineias spoke to him in answer: “Lykaon
son of Priam, why do you urge me on against my will
to fight in the face of Peleus’ son and his too great fury?
Since this will not be the first time I stand up against swift-footed
90 Achilleus, but another time before now he drove me
with the spear from Ida, when he came there after our cattle
the time he sacked Lyrnessos and Pedasos. But Zeus rescued me
when he put strength inside me and made my knees quick. Otherwise
I should have gone down at Achilleus’ hands, and those of Athene
95 who goes before him and makes light before him, who then was urging
him on with the brazen spear to destroy Leleges and Trojans.
Thereby it is not for any man to fight with Achilleus.
There is always some one of the gods with him to beat death from him.
Without this, even, his spear wings straight to its mark, nor gives out
The Iliad of Homer Page 57