by Homer
(630) ’This is hopeless! Any fool can see Father Zeus himself is helping the Trojans. Every spear they throw hits its mark. Whether an incompetent or expert throws it, Zeus sees it to its target, while all ours fall ineffectually to the ground like this.
‘Well, we shall have to come up with an effective tactic of our own for bringing the body away and pleasing our comrades behind by getting safely back to them. They must be watching us in some anxiety and wondering whether anything can stop man-slaying Hector in his determined onslaught from swoop (640) ing down on our black ships. If only one of our men could run with a message to Achilles – I don’t believe he has even heard the dreadful news of his dear companion’s death. But I can’t see the man for the task: men and horses are all lost in this mist. Father Zeus, get us out of it and give us a clear sky, so that at least we can see what we’re doing. As long as we are in the light, kill us too, since that is what you want.’
Antilochus to inform Achilles
So he spoke, and the Father, moved by this tearful outburst, (650) quickly cleared away the darkness and dispersed the mist. The sun burst through, bringing the whole battlefield into view. Then Ajax said to Menelaus, master of the battle-cry:
‘Now look around you, Olympian-born Menelaus, and see whether you can spot great-hearted Nestor’s son, Antilochus. If he’s still alive, tell him to run quickly to warlike Achilles with the news that his dearest companion is dead.’
So he spoke, and Menelaus, master of the battle-cry, complied. He set off like a lion that retreats from a farmyard when it is tired of pitting itself against the dogs and men: they have stayed awake all night to protect the choicest of their cattle from (660) his jaws but, hungry for meat, the lion keeps on charging. But it does no good by it. Showers of spears and blazing torches hurled at it by strong hands scare it off for all its appetite, and at dawn it slinks off disappointed – so Menelaus, master of the battle-cry, retired from the body of Patroclus. He did not wish to go at all since he was much afraid that the Greeks, as the result of dire panic, might make the enemy a gift of it. He gave Meriones and the two Ajaxes full orders:
‘You two Ajaxes, leaders of the Greeks, and you, Meriones, (670) now’s the time to remember poor, gentle Patroclus. To every one of us he was the soul of kindness while he lived. Now death and destiny have claimed him.’
With these words auburn-haired Menelaus went off, peering all round him like an eagle, which is said to have the sharpest sight of any bird in the sky: however high in the air, it still spots the swift hare crouching under a leafy bush and swoops down, seizes it and takes its life – so, Olympian-born Menelaus, did (680) your brilliant eyes range everywhere among your many men, to see whether Nestor’s son Antilochus was still alive. Menelaus quickly spotted his man on the far left of the battle, encouraging his troops and driving them on to fight. Auburn-haired Menelaus went up to him and said:
‘Olympian-born Antilochus, come here and let me tell you the dreadful news. How I wish it had never happened! You must have seen for yourself that the god has already brought disaster to the Greeks and victory to the Trojans. But now the best of all (690) the Greeks is dead – Patroclus. It is an enormous loss for us. Now run to the ships at once, let Achilles know and tell him to come to the rescue immediately and bring the body safely back to his ship. It has been stripped. Hector of the flashing helmet has his armour.’
So he spoke, and Antilochus was horrified at what he heard. For a while he was unable to speak; his eyes filled with tears; the words stuck in his throat. But he did not ignore Menelaus’ orders and set off at a run after handing his armour to his admirable attendant Laodocus, who was manoeuvring his (700) horses up and down beside him. He ran, weeping, from the battlefield to tell Achilles the bad news.
Nor did you, Olympian-born Menelaus, wish to stay and help the weary Pylian troops whom Antilochus had left, though they missed their leader badly. Instead, Menelaus put godlike Thrasymedes in command and himself returned to stand over Patroclus. He ran up to the two Ajaxes and immediately said:
‘I’ve sent our man to the ships with the message for Achilles. (710) But I dare not hope Achilles will come at once, however angry he may be with Hector – he can’t fight the Trojans without his armour. We’ll have to come up with an effective tactic of our own for bringing back the body and saving our own lives from these yelling Trojans.’
Great Ajax son of Telamon replied:
‘You’re quite right, noble Menelaus. You and Meriones get your shoulders under the body, lift it up and get it out of the fighting as fast as you can, while the pair of us stay and keep (720) Hector and the Trojans engaged. We Ajaxes share the same name and spirit. This is not the first time we’ve fought in a tight corner side by side.’
Greeks retreat with Patroclus’ body
So he spoke, and with a tremendous effort the two men hoisted Patroclus up off the ground. The pursuing Trojans gave a shout when they saw the Greeks carrying off the body and charged like hounds that launch themselves at a wounded boar in front of the young huntsmen: for a while the hounds race after him, determined to tear him to pieces, but when the boar, relying on its strength, (730) turns on them, they recoil and bolt in all directions – so for a time the Trojans followed up in a mass, stabbing with their swords and curved spears. But when the two Ajaxes turned and made a stand against them, their colour changed and none of them had the courage to charge in and fight over the body.
So, full of determination, Menelaus and Meriones carried Patroclus’ body from the battlefield and brought it to the hollow ships. The battle extended round them as uncontrollable as a fire that suddenly blazes up and sweeps through a town, and the houses are consumed in a mighty conflagration and a (740) powerful wind roars on the flames – so the incessant din from fighting men and chariots followed after them as they went. As mules put all their energy into dragging a log or some huge ship’s timber down from the mountains by a rocky track, wearing themselves out with their exertions, heaving and sweating, so, full of determination, they carried off the body.
Behind them, the two Ajaxes held back the enemy, as a wooded ridge that lies in a continuous line across the countryside holds back the floods and withstands the destructive (750) torrents of mighty rivers, diverting them all over the plain and thrusting them back, and the rivers do not break through even when they pour down in spate – so all the time the two Ajaxes fended off the Trojans who attacked the rear. But the Trojans and two men in particular, Aeneas son of Anchises and glorious Hector, kept after them. As a flock of starlings or jackdaws takes wing, screaming in confusion, when they see a falcon after them, spelling death to their nestlings, so the Greek warriors, confused and yelling, fled before Aeneas and Hector and lost (760) the will to fight. Many a fine weapon fell at and around the ditch as the Greeks ran for it. But there was no let-up in the conflict.
18
ACHILLES’ DECISION
1–147: Antilochus brings news of Patroclus’ death. Achilles collapses in grief, and his mother THETIS, hearing his cries, arrives with her Sea-nymphs to lament. Achilles says he will have his revenge by killing Hector and ignores THETIS’ warning that his death will follow soon after Hector’s.
148–242: Achilles makes an appearance on the battlefield and with ATHENE’s help routs the Trojans with a shout. Patroclus’ body is brought back to the Greek camp [night before 27th day].
243–314: Terrified by Achilles’ return, the Trojans hold an assembly. Polydamus recommends withdrawal to Ilium; Hector, wrongly convinced ZEUS is on his side, rejects this advice and wins Trojan approval to continue the attack next morning.
314–68: Achilles laments Patroclus, foreseeing his own death but anticipating revenge on Hector. The body is washed, anointed and clothed, and lamentation continues throughout the night. HERA gloats to ZEUS over her success in bringing Achilles back into the fighting.
369–467: THETIS arrives at HEPHAESTUS’ home and asks for armour.
468–617: HEPHAESTUS return
s to his forge to make armour for Achilles. The shield is described in detail.
So they fought on like blazing fire. Meanwhile Antilochus, swift-footed messenger, came to Achilles with his news and found him in front of his beaked ships. Achilles harboured a premonition of what had already happened and, disturbed, was reflecting on the situation:
‘What’s going on? Why are the long-haired Greeks stampeding wildly for their ships across the plain? I pray the gods have not brought about the grief and suffering my mother once (10) predicted for me. She told me that, while I was still alive, the best of the Myrmidons would fall to the Trojans and leave the light of day. And now I am sure Menoetius’ brave son Patroclus is dead. The hothead! I ordered him to come back here when he’d saved the ships from the flames and not fight it out with Hector.’
While these thoughts raced through his mind, noble Antilochus, Nestor’s son, halted before him, hot tears pouring down his cheeks, and gave him the agonizing news:
‘What can I say, son of warlike Peleus? You are about to hear (20) dreadful news. If only it weren’t true. Patroclus lies dead. They are fighting over his body. It’s been stripped. Hector of the flashing helmet has your armour.’
Achilles collapses at the news
So he spoke, and a black cloud of grief engulfed Achilles. He picked up the sooty dust in both his hands and poured it over his head. He begrimed his handsome features with it, and black ashes settled on his sweet-smelling tunic. Great Achilles lay spread out in the dust, a giant of a man, clawing at his hair with his hands and mangling it. The female slaves he and Patroclus had captured (30) shrieked aloud and in their grief ran out of doors to surround warlike Achilles. They beat their breasts with their hands and sank to the ground. On the other side Antilochus, shedding tears of misery, gripped Achilles’ hands. Achilles was sobbing out his noble heart, and Antilochus was afraid he might take a knife and cut his throat.
Achilles let out an intimidating cry, and his lady mother heard him where she sat in the depths of the sea beside her ancient father. Then she herself took up the cry of grief, and there gathered round her every goddess, every Nereid that was in the deep salt sea. Glauce was there and Thaleia and Cymodoce; (40) Nesaea, Speio, Thoe and ox-eyed Halie; Cymothoe, Actaee and Limnoreia; Melite, Iaera, Amphithoe and Agaue; Doto, Proto too, Pherusa and Dynamene; Dexamene, Amphinome and Callianeira; Doris and Panope and famous, far-sung Galatea; Nemertes and Apseudes and Callianassa; Clymene came too, with Ianeira, Ianassa, Maera, Oreithuia, lovely-haired Ama- (50) theia, and other Nereids of the salt-sea depths. The silvery cave was full of Nymphs. With one accord they beat their breasts, and Thetis led them in their lamentations:
THETIS brings her Nereids to mourn
’Listen to me, my sister Nereids, and know the sorrows of my heart. How wretched I am, unhappy mother of the best of men! I brought into the world a matchless son, a mighty man, greatest of warriors. I nursed him as one tends a little plant in a garden bed and he shot up like a sapling. I sent him to Ilium in his ships to fight (60) against the Trojans; and never again now shall I welcome him home to Peleus’ house. And yet he has to suffer, every day he lives and sees the sun; and I can do no good by going to his side. But I will go, none the less, to see my dear child and hear what anguish has come to him in his absence from the fighting.’
With these words she left the cave. The rest went with her, weeping, and on either side of them the surging sea fell back. When they reached fertile Troy, they came up one by one on to the beach where the Myrmidon ships had been drawn up on the (70) shore round swift Achilles. His lady mother went up to him as he lay groaning there and with a piercing cry took her son’s head in her hands and lamenting spoke winged words:
‘My child, why these tears? Why this sorrow? Tell me, don’t keep it to yourself. What you prayed for when you lifted up your hands to Zeus has been fulfilled by him: the Greeks have been penned in at the ships because of your absence and suffered the ugly consequences.’
Swift-footed Achilles sighed heavily and said:
‘Mother, the Olympian has indeed done what I asked. But (80) what satisfaction can I get from that, now that my dearest companion is dead, Patroclus, who was more to me than any other of my men, whom I loved as much as my own life? I have destroyed Patroclus. And Hector who killed him has stripped him of my armour, my awe-inspiring, wonderful, magnificent armour that the gods gave as a splendid gift to Peleus on the day they brought you to the bed of a mortal man in marriage. How I wish you had stayed there with the deathless salt-sea Nymphs, and Peleus had taken home a mortal wife! But as it is, you became my mother; and now, to multiply your sorrows (90) too, you are going to lose your son and never welcome him home again. For I have no wish to live and linger in the world of men, unless, before all else, Hector is hit by my spear and dies, paying the price for slaughtering Patroclus son of Menoetius.’
Thetis said in tears:
‘If that is so, my child, you do not have long to live; you are doomed to die immediately after Hector -’
Deeply disturbed, swift-footed Achilles replied:
Achilles accepts death
’Then let me die immediately, since I let my companion be killed when I could have saved him. He has fallen, far from the land of his fathers, needing (100) my help to defend him from death. But now, since I shall never see the land of my fathers again, since I have proved no defence for Patroclus or for all my many other comrades whom godlike Hector killed, but have sat here by my ships, an idle burden on the earth, a man who fights like no other in all the Greek army, though others are better in debate ... ah, how I wish rivalry could be banished from the world of gods and men, and with it anger, which makes the wisest man flare up and spreads much (110) sweeter than dripping honey through his whole being, like smoke – anger such as lord Agamemnon has now provoked in me!
‘But however much it still rankles, it is now over and done with: let it go. We must master our pride. We have no choice. So now I will go and seek out Hector, the destroyer of that dear life. As for my death, when Zeus and the other immortal gods appoint it, I will welcome it. Even mighty Heracles could not escape his doom, dear as he was to lord Zeus son of Cronus, but was laid low by destiny and Hera’s bitter anger. So I too (120) shall lie low in death, if the same destiny awaits me.
‘But now, may I win heroic glory! I will make these Trojan women and full-girdled daughters of Dardanus wipe the tears from their tender cheeks with both their hands as they raise the funeral dirge, to teach them that I have been away from battle too long. And you, Mother, as you love me, don’t keep me from battle. You will never persuade me now.’
The goddess silver-footed Thetis replied:
THETIS promises fresh armour
’Indeed, my child, it would be no bad thing for you to save your exhausted comrades from the death that stares them in the (130) face. But your fine, sparkling bronze armour is in Trojan hands. Hector of the flashing helmet is swaggering about in it himself – not, I think, that he will glory in it long, for he is very near death. So don’t throw yourself into the grind of battle till you see me here again. I shall come back at sunrise tomorrow with a fine set of armour from lord Hephaestus.’
With these words she turned away from her son and spoke to her sister Nereids:
(140) ’Plunge now into the broad bosom of the deep and make your way to the Old Man of the Sea and our father’s house. Tell him everything. I myself am going to high Olympus to ask the famous blacksmith Hephaestus whether he would like to give my son an impressive set of shining armour.’
So she spoke, and the Nymphs now disappeared from view into the waves of the sea, and the goddess silver-footed Thetis set out for Olympus to fetch an impressive set of armour for her dear son.
Hector almost takes Patroclus’ body
While she was on her way to Olympus, the Greek men-at-arms, escaping with cries of terror from man-slaying Hector, streamed back to the ships and the Hellespont. It was almost more than they could do (150) to dra
g the body of Achilles’ attendant Patroclus out of range of the missiles. The Trojan infantry and chariots and Hector, like fire in his courage, caught up with it again. Three times glorious Hector, coming up behind and shouting for his men’s support, seized it by the feet and tried to drag it back; three times the two Ajaxes, clothed in martial valour, flung him back from the body.
(170) But Hector’s resolution was unshaken. When he was not (160) hurling himself into the mêlée, he stood his ground, shouting his great battle-cry, and he never once fell back. As shepherds in the fields are unable to chase a famished tawny lion off its kill, so the bronze-armoured Ajaxes could not chase Priam’s son Hector away from the body. In fact Hector would have hauled it away and won unutterable glory, if swift Iris, quick as the wind, had not come running down from Olympus to tell Achilles to prepare for battle. Hera sent her without telling Zeus and the other gods. Coming up to Achilles she spoke winged words:
IRIS rouses Achilles
‘Up, son of Peleus, most impetuous of men – rise and defend Patroclus! They’re fighting tooth and nail for him, and men are killing men beside the ships, the Greeks in their efforts to protect his body, the Trojans in the hope of hauling it away to windswept Ilium. Glorious Hector above all is determined to drag off Patroclus. He wants to cut his head from his soft neck and stick it on the palisade. So get up! Stop lying there! You should feel ashamed that Patroclus might become the plaything of the dogs of Ilium. (180) It’s you who’ll be disgraced if he goes mutilated to the dead below.’
Swift-footed godlike Achilles replied: