[Iliad Blogged]

The assembly now broke up and the people went their ways each to his
own ship. There they made ready their supper, and then bethought
them of the blessed boon of sleep; but Achilles still wept for
thinking of his dear comrade, and sleep, before whom all things bow,
could take no hold upon him. This way and that did he turn as he
yearned after the might and manfulness of Patroclus; he thought of
all they had done together, and all they had gone through both on
the field of battle and on the waves of the weary sea. As he dwelt
on these things he wept bitterly and lay now on his side, now on his
back, and now face downwards, till at last he rose and went out as
one distraught to wander upon the seashore. Then, when he saw dawn
breaking over beach and sea, he yoked his horses to his chariot, and
bound the body of Hector behind it that he might drag it
about. Thrice did he drag it round the tomb of the son of Menoetius,
and then went back into his tent, leaving the body on the ground
full length and with its face downwards. But Apollo would not suffer
it to be disfigured, for he pitied the man, dead though he now was;
therefore he shielded him with his golden aegis continually, that he
might take no hurt while Achilles was dragging him.

( Read more... )

Thus did they make their moan throughout the city, while the
Achaeans when they reached the Hellespont went back every man to his
own ship. But Achilles would not let the Myrmidons go, and spoke to
his brave comrades saying, "Myrmidons, famed horsemen and my own
trusted friends, not yet, forsooth, let us unyoke, but with horse
and chariot draw near to the body and mourn Patroclus, in due honour
to the dead. When we have had full comfort of lamentation we will
unyoke our horses and take supper all of us here."

On this they all joined in a cry of wailing and Achilles led them in
their lament. Thrice did they drive their chariots all sorrowing
round the body, and Thetis stirred within them a still deeper
yearning. The sands of the seashore and the men's armour were wet
with their weeping, so great a minister of fear was he whom they had
lost. Chief in all their mourning was the son of Peleus: he laid his
bloodstained hand on the breast of his friend. "Fare well," he
cried, "Patroclus, even in the house of Hades. I will now do all
that I erewhile promised you; I will drag Hector hither and let dogs
devour him raw; twelve noble sons of Trojans will I also slay before
your pyre to avenge you."

( Read more... )

THUS the Trojans in the city, scared like fawns, wiped the sweat
from off them and drank to quench their thirst, leaning against the
goodly battlements, while the Achaeans with their shields laid upon
their shoulders drew close up to the walls. But stern fate bade
Hector stay where he was before Ilius and the Scaean gates. Then
Phoebus Apollo spoke to the son of Peleus saying, "Why, son of
Peleus, do you, who are but man, give chase to me who am immortal?
Have you not yet found out that it is a god whom you pursue so
furiously? You did not harass the Trojans whom you had routed, and
now they are within their walls, while you have been decoyed hither
away from them. Me you cannot kill, for death can take no hold upon
me."
( Read more... )

  NOW when they came to the ford of the full-flowing river Xanthus,
begotten of immortal Jove, Achilles cut their forces in two: one
half he chased over the plain towards the city by the same way that
the Achaeans had taken when flying panic-stricken on the preceding day
with Hector in full triumph; this way did they fly pell-mell, and Juno
sent down a thick mist in front of them to stay them. The other half
were hemmed in by the deep silver-eddying stream, and fell into it
with a great uproar. The waters resounded, and the banks rang again,
as they swam hither and thither with loud cries amid the whirling
eddies. As locusts flying to a river before the blast of a grass fire-
the flame comes on and on till at last it overtakes them and they
huddle into the water- even so was the eddying stream of Xanthus
filled with the uproar of men and horses, all struggling in
confusion before Achilles.

( Read more... )

THUS, then, did the Achaeans arm by their ships round you, O son
of Peleus, who were hungering for battle; while the Trojans over
against them armed upon the rise of the plain.

Meanwhile Jove from the top of many-delled Olympus, bade Themis
gather the gods in council, whereon she went about and called them
to the house of Jove. There was not a river absent except Oceanus, nor
a single one of the nymphs that haunt fair groves, or springs of
rivers and meadows of green grass. When they reached the house of
cloud-compelling Jove, they took their seats in the arcades of
polished marble which Vulcan with his consummate skill had made for
father Jove.

( Read more... )

Now when Dawn in robe of saffron was hasting from the streams of Oceanus, to bring light to mortals and immortals, Thetis reached the ships with the armour that the god had given her. She found her son fallen about the body of Patroclus and weeping bitterly. Many also of his followers were weeping round him, but when the goddess came among them she clasped his hand in her own, saying, "My son, grieve as we may we must let this man lie, for it is by heaven's will that he has fallen; now, therefore, accept from Vulcan this rich and goodly armour, which no man has ever yet borne upon his shoulders."

As she spoke she set the armour before Achilles, and it rang out
bravely as she did so. The Myrmidons were struck with awe, and none
dared look full at it, for they were afraid; but Achilles was roused
to still greater fury, and his eyes gleamed with a fierce light, for
he was glad when he handled the splendid present which the god had
made him. Then, as soon as he had satisfied himself with looking at
it, he said to his mother, "Mother, the god has given me armour,
meet handiwork for an immortal and such as no living could have
fashioned; I will now arm, but I much fear that flies will settle
upon the son of Menoetius and breed worms about his wounds, so that
his body, now he is dead, will be disfigured and the flesh will
rot."
( Read more... )

  Thus then did they fight as it were a flaming fire. Meanwhile the
  fleet runner Antilochus, who had been sent as messenger, reached
  Achilles, and found him sitting by his tall ships and boding that
  which was indeed too surely true. "Alas," said he to himself in the
  heaviness of his heart, "why are the Achaeans again scouring the
  plain and flocking towards the ships? Heaven grant the gods be not
  now bringing that sorrow upon me of which my mother Thetis spoke,
  saying that while I was yet alive the bravest of the Myrmidons
  should fall before the Trojans, and see the light of the sun no
  longer. I fear the brave son of Menoetius has fallen through his own
  daring and yet I bade him return to the ships as soon as he had
  driven back those that were bringing fire against them, and not join
  battle with Hector."

  As he was thus pondering, the son of Nestor came up to him and told
  his sad tale, weeping bitterly the while. "Alas," he cried, "son of
  noble Peleus, I bring you bad tidings, would indeed that they were
  untrue. Patroclus has fallen, and a fight is raging about his naked
  body- for Hector holds his armour."

( Read more... )

Brave Menelaus son of Atreus now came to know that Patroclus had
fallen, and made his way through the front ranks clad in full armour
to bestride him. As a cow stands lowing over her first calf, even so
did yellow-haired Menelaus bestride Patroclus. He held his round
shield and his spear in front of him, resolute to kill any who
should dare face him. But the son of Panthous had also noted the
body, and came up to Menelaus saying, "Menelaus, son of Atreus, draw
back, leave the body, and let the bloodstained spoils be. I was
first of the Trojans and their brave allies to drive my spear into
Patroclus, let me, therefore, have my full glory among the Trojans,
or I will take aim and kill you."

( Read more... )

  Thus did they fight about the ship of Protesilaus. Then Patroclus
drew near to Achilles with tears welling from his eyes, as from some
spring whose crystal stream falls over the ledges of a high precipice.
When Achilles saw him thus weeping he was sorry for him and said,
"Why, Patroclus, do you stand there weeping like some silly child that
comes running to her mother, and begs to be taken up and carried-
she catches hold of her mother's dress to stay her though she is in
a hurry, and looks tearfully up until her mother carries her- even
such tears, Patroclus, are you now shedding. Have you anything to
say to the Myrmidons or to myself? or have you had news from Phthia
which you alone know? They tell me Menoetius son of Actor is still
alive, as also Peleus son of Aeacus, among the Myrmidons- men whose
loss we two should bitterly deplore; or are you grieving about the
Argives and the way in which they are being killed at the ships, throu
their own high-handed doings? Do not hide anything from me but tell me
that both of us may know about it."
( Read more... )

  But when their flight had taken them past the trench and the set
  stakes, and many had fallen by the hands of the Danaans, the Trojans
  made a halt on reaching their chariots, routed and pale with fear.
  Jove now woke on the crests of Ida, where he was lying with
  golden-throned Juno by his side, and starting to his feet he saw the
  Trojans and Achaeans, the one thrown into confusion, and the others
  driving them pell-mell before them with King Neptune in their midst.
  He saw Hector lying on the ground with his comrades gathered round
  him, gasping for breath, wandering in mind and vomiting blood, for
  it was not the feeblest of the Achaeans who struck him.

  The sire of gods and men had pity on him, and looked fiercely on
  Juno. "I see, Juno," said he, "you mischief- making trickster, that
  your cunning has stayed Hector from fighting and has caused the rout
  of his host. I am in half a mind to thrash you, in which case you
  will be the first to reap the fruits of your scurvy knavery. Do you
  not remember how once upon a time I had you hanged? I fastened two
  anvils on to your feet, and bound your hands in a chain of gold
  which none might break, and you hung in mid-air among the clouds.
  All the gods in Olympus were in a fury, but they could not reach you
  to set you free; when I caught any one of them I gripped him and
  hurled him from the heavenly threshold till he came fainting down to
  earth; yet even this did not relieve my mind from the incessant
  anxiety which I felt about noble Hercules whom you and Boreas had
  spitefully conveyed beyond the seas to Cos, after suborning the
  tempests; but I rescued him, and notwithstanding all his mighty
  labours I brought him back again to Argos. I would remind you of
  this that you may learn to leave off being so deceitful, and
  discover how much you are likely to gain by the embraces out of
  which you have come here to trick me."

( Read more... )

  Nestor was sitting over his wine, but the cry of battle did not
  escape him, and he said to the son of Aesculapius, "What, noble
  Machaon, is the meaning of all this? The shouts of men fighting by
  our ships grow stronger and stronger; stay here, therefore, and sit
  over your wine, while fair Hecamede heats you a bath and washes the
  clotted blood from off you. I will go at once to the look-out
  station and see what it is all about."

  As he spoke he took up the shield of his son Thrasymedes that was
  lying in his tent, all gleaming with bronze, for Thrasymedes had
  taken his father's shield; he grasped his redoubtable bronze-shod
  spear, and as soon as he was outside saw the disastrous rout of the
  Achaeans who, now that their wall was overthrown, were flying
  pell-mell before the Trojans. As when there is a heavy swell upon
  the sea, but the waves are dumb- they keep their eyes on the watch
  for the quarter whence the fierce winds may spring upon them, but
  they stay where they are and set neither this way nor that, till
  some particular wind sweeps down from heaven to determine them- even
  so did the old man ponder whether to make for the crowd of Danaans,
  or go in search of Agamemnon. In the end he deemed it best to go to
  the son of Atreus; but meanwhile the hosts were fighting and killing
  one another, and the hard bronze rattled on their bodies, as they
  thrust at one another with their swords and spears.
( Read more... )

Now when Jove had thus brought Hector and the Trojans to the ships,
he left them to their never-ending toil, and turned his keen eyes
away, looking elsewhither towards the horse-breeders of Thrace, the
Mysians, fighters at close quarters, the noble Hippemolgi, who live
on milk, and the Abians, justest of mankind. He no longer turned so
much as a glance towards Troy, for he did not think that any of the
immortals would go and help either Trojans or Danaans.

But King Neptune had kept no blind look-out; he had been looking
admiringly on the battle from his seat on the topmost crests of
wooded Samothrace, whence he could see all Ida, with the city of
Priam and the ships of the Achaeans. He had come from under the sea
and taken his place here, for he pitied the Achaeans who were being
overcome by the Trojans; and he was furiously angry with Jove.
( Read more... )

So the son of Menoetius was attending to the hurt of Eurypylus
within the tent, but the Argives and Trojans still fought
desperately, nor were the trench and the high wall above it, to keep
the Trojans in check longer. They had built it to protect their
ships, and had dug the trench all round it that it might safeguard
both the ships and the rich spoils which they had taken, but they
had not offered hecatombs to the gods. It had been built without the
consent of the immortals, and therefore it did not last. So long as
Hector lived and Achilles nursed his anger, and so long as the city
of Priam remained untaken, the great wall of the Achaeans stood
firm; but when the bravest of the Trojans were no more, and many
also of the Argives, though some were yet left alive when, moreover,
the city was sacked in the tenth year, and the Argives had gone back
with their ships to their own country- then Neptune and Apollo took
counsel to destroy the wall, and they turned on to it the streams of
all the rivers from Mount Ida into the sea, Rhesus, Heptaporus,
Caresus, Rhodius, Grenicus, Aesopus, and goodly Scamander, with
Simois, where many a shield and helm had fallen, and many a hero of
the race of demigods had bitten the dust. Phoebus Apollo turned the
mouths of all these rivers together and made them flow for nine days
against the wall, while Jove rained the whole time that he might
wash it sooner into the sea. Neptune himself, trident in hand,
surveyed the work and threw into the sea all the foundations of
beams and stones which the Achaeans had laid with so much toil; he
made all level by the mighty stream of the Hellespont, and then when
he had swept the wall away he spread a great beach of sand over the
place where it had been. This done he turned the rivers back into
their old courses.

( Read more... )

And now as Dawn rose from her couch beside Tithonus, harbinger of
light alike to mortals and immortals, Jove sent fierce Discord with
the ensign of war in her hands to the ships of the Achaeans. She
took her stand by the huge black hull of Ulysses' ship which was
middlemost of all, so that her voice might carry farthest on either
side, on the one hand towards the tents of Ajax son of Telamon, and
on the other towards those of Achilles- for these two heroes,
well-assured of their own strength, had valorously drawn up their
ships at the two ends of the line. There she took her stand, and
raised a cry both loud and shrill that filled the Achaeans with
courage, giving them heart to fight resolutely and with all their
might, so that they had rather stay there and do battle than go home
in their ships.

( Read More... )

Now the other princes of the Achaeans slept soundly the whole night
through, but Agamemnon son of Atreus was troubled, so that he could
get no rest. As when fair Juno's lord flashes his lightning in token
of great rain or hail or snow when the snow-flakes whiten the
ground, or again as a sign that he will open the wide jaws of hungry
war, even so did Agamemnon heave many a heavy sigh, for his soul
trembled within him. When he looked upon the plain of Troy he
marvelled at the many watchfires burning in front of Ilius, and at
the sound of pipes and flutes and of the hum of men, but when
presently he turned towards the ships and hosts of the Achaeans, he
tore his hair by handfuls before Jove on high, and groaned aloud for
the very disquietness of his soul. In the end he deemed it best to
go at once to Nestor son of Neleus, and see if between them they
could find any way of the Achaeans from destruction. He therefore
rose, put on his shirt, bound his sandals about his comely feet,
flung the skin of a huge tawny lion over his shoulders- a skin that
reached his feet- and took his spear in his hand.

( Read more... )

THUS did the Trojans watch. But Panic, comrade of blood-stained
Rout, had taken fast hold of the Achaeans and their princes were all
of them in despair. As when the two winds that blow from Thrace- the
north and the northwest- spring up of a sudden and rouse the fury of
the main- in a moment the dark waves uprear their heads and scatter
their sea-wrack in all directions- even thus troubled were the
hearts of the Achaeans.

( Read more... )

Now when Morning, clad in her robe of saffron, had begun to suffuse
light over the earth, Jove called the gods in council on the topmost
crest of serrated Olympus. Then he spoke and all the other gods gave
ear. "Hear me," said he, "gods and goddesses, that I may speak even
as I am minded. Let none of you neither goddess nor god try to cross
me, but obey me every one of you that I may bring this matter to an
end. If I see anyone acting apart and helping either Trojans or
Danaans, he shall be beaten inordinately ere he come back again to
Olympus; or I will hurl him down into dark Tartarus far into the
deepest pit under the earth, where the gates are iron and the floor
bronze, as far beneath Hades as heaven is high above the earth, that
you may learn how much the mightiest I am among you. Try me and find
out for yourselves. Hangs me a golden chain from heaven, and lay
hold of it all of you, gods and goddesses together- tug as you will,
you will not drag Jove the supreme counsellor from heaven to earth;
but were I to pull at it myself I should draw you up with earth and
sea into the bargain, then would I bind the chain about some
pinnacle of Olympus and leave you all dangling in the mid firmament.
So far am I above all others either of gods or men."

( Read more... )

With these words Hector passed through the gates, and his brother
Alexandrus with him, both eager for the fray. As when heaven sends a
breeze to sailors who have long looked for one in vain, and have
laboured at their oars till they are faint with toil, even so
welcome was the sight of these two heroes to the Trojans.

Thereon Alexandrus killed Menesthius the son of Areithous; he lived
in Ame, and was son of Areithous the Mace-man, and of
Phylomedusa. Hector threw a spear at Eioneus and struck him dead
with a wound in the neck under the bronze rim of his helmet.
Glaucus, moreover, son of Hippolochus, captain of the Lycians, in
hard hand-to-hand fight smote Iphinous son of Dexius on the
shoulder, as he was springing on to his chariot behind his fleet
mares; so he fell to earth from the car, and there was no life left
in him.

( Read more... )

The fight between Trojans and Achaeans was now left to rage as it
would, and the tide of war surged hither and thither over the plain as
they aimed their bronze-shod spears at one another between the streams
of Simois and Xanthus.

First, Ajax son of Telamon, tower of strength to the Achaeans, broke
a phalanx of the Trojans, and came to the assistance of his comrades
by killing Acamas son of Eussorus, the best man among the Thracians,
being both brave and of great stature. The spear struck the projecting
peak of his helmet: its bronze point then went through his forehead
into the brain, and darkness veiled his eyes.

( Read more... )

Then Pallas Minerva put valour into the heart of Diomed, son of
Tydeus, that he might excel all the other Argives, and cover himself
with glory. She made a stream of fire flare from his shield and helmet
like the star that shines most brilliantly in summer after its bath in
the waters of Oceanus- even such a fire did she kindle upon his head
and shoulders as she bade him speed into the thickest hurly-burly of
the fight.
( Read more... )