The Iliad

by Robert Fagels

  cutting them down or selling them off as slaves,

  shipped to islands half the world away ...

  Even now there are two, Lycaon and Potydorus—

  I cannot find them among the soldiers crowding Troy,

  those sons Laothoe bore me, Laothoë queen of women.

  But if they are still alive in the enemy’s camp,

  then we’ll ransom them back with bronze and gold.

  We have hoards inside the walls, the rich dowry

  old and famous Altes presented with his daughter.

  But if they’re dead already, gone to the House of Death,

  what grief to their mother’s heart and mine—we gave them life.

  For the rest of Troy, though, just a moment’s grief

  unless you too are battered down by Achilles.

  Back, come back! Inside the walls, my boy!

  Rescue the men of Troy and the Trojan women—

  don’t hand the great glory to Peleus’ son,

  bereft of your own sweet life yourself.

  Pity me too!—

  still in my senses, true, but a harrowed, broken man

  marked out by doom—past the threshold of old age ...

  and Father Zeus will waste me with a hideous fate,

  and after I’ve lived to look on so much horror!

  My sons laid low, my daughters dragged away

  and the treasure-chambers looted, helpless babies

  hurled to the earth in the red barbarity of war ...

  my sons’ wives hauled off by the Argives’ bloody hands!

  And I, I last of all—the dogs before my doors

  will eat me raw, once some enemy brings me down

  with his sharp bronze sword or spits me with a spear,

  wrenching the life out of my body, yes, the very dogs

  I bred in my own halls to share my table, guard my gates—

  mad, rabid at heart they’ll lap their master’s blood

  and loll before my doors.

  Ah for a young man

  all looks fine and noble if he goes down in war,

  hacked to pieces under a slashing bronze blade—

  he lies there dead ... but whatever death lays bare,

  all wounds are marks of glory. When an old man’s killed

  and the dogs go at the gray head and the gray beard

  and mutilate the genitals—that is the cruelest sight

  in all our wretched lives!”

  So the old man groaned

  and seizing his gray hair tore it out by the roots

  but he could not shake the fixed resolve of Hector.

  And his mother wailed now, standing beside Priam,

  weeping freely, loosing her robes with one hand

  and holding out her bare breast with the other,

  her words pouring forth in a flight of grief and tears:

  “Hector, my child! Look—have some respect for this!

  Pity your mother too, if I ever gave you the breast

  to soothe your troubles, remember it now, dear boy—

  beat back that savage man from safe inside the walls!

  Don’t go forth, a champion pitted against him—

  merciless, brutal man. If he kills you now,

  how can I ever mourn you on your deathbed?—

  dear branch in bloom, dear child I brought to birth!—

  Neither I nor your wife, that warm, generous woman ...

  Now far beyond our reach, now by the Argive ships

  the rushing dogs will tear you, bolt your flesh!”

  So they wept, the two of them crying out

  to their dear son, both pleading time and again

  but they could not shake the fixed resolve of Hector.

  No, he waited Achilles, coming on, gigantic in power.

  As a snake in the hills, guarding his hole, awaits a man—

  bloated with poison, deadly hatred seething inside him,

  glances flashing fire as he coils round his lair ...

  so Hector, nursing his quenchless fury, gave no ground,

  leaning his burnished shield against a jutting wall,

  but harried still, he probed his own brave heart:

  “No way out. If I slip inside the gates and walls,

  Polydamas will be first to heap disgrace on me—

  he was the one who urged me to lead our Trojans

  back to Ilium just last night, the disastrous night

  Achilles rose in arms like a god. But did I give way?

  Not at all. And how much better it would have been!

  Now my army’s ruined, thanks to my own reckless pride,

  I would die of shame to face the men of Troy

  and the Trojan women trailing their long robes ...

  Someone less of a man than I will say, ‘Our Hector—

  staking all on his own strength, he destroyed his army!’

  So they will mutter. So now, better by far for me

  to stand up to Achilles, kill him, come home alive

  or die at his hands in glory out before the walls.

  But wait—what if I put down my studded shield

  and heavy helmet, prop my spear on the rampart

  and go forth, just as I am, to meet Achilles,

  noble Prince Achilles ...

  why, I could promise to give back Helen, yes,

  and all her treasures with her, all those riches

  Paris once hauled home to Troy in the hollow ships—

  and they were the cause of all our endless fighting—

  Yes, yes, return it all to the sons of Atreus now

  to haul away, and then, at the same time, divide

  the rest with all the Argives, all the city holds,

  and then I’d take an oath for the Trojan royal council

  that we will hide nothing! Share and share alike the hoards

  our handsome citadel stores within its depths and—

  Why debate, my friend? Why thrash things out?

  I must not go and implore him. He’ll show no mercy,

  no respect for me, my rights—he’ll cut me down

  straight off—stripped of defenses like a woman

  once I have loosed the armor off my body.

  No way to parley with that man—not now—

  not from behind some oak or rock to whisper,

  like a boy and a young girl, lovers’ secrets

  a boy and girl might whisper to each other ...

  Better to clash in battle, now, at once—

  see which fighter Zeus awards the glory!”

  So he wavered,

  waiting there, but Achilles was closing on him now

  like the god of war, the fighter’s helmet flashing,

  over his right shoulder shaking the Pelian ash spear,

  that terror, and the bronze around his body flared

  like a raging fire or the rising, blazing sun.

  Hector looked up, saw him, started to tremble,

  nerve gone, he could hold his ground no longer,

  he left the gates behind and away he fled in fear—

  and Achilles went for him, fast, sure of his speed

  as the wild mountain hawk, the quickest thing on wings,

  launching smoothly, swooping down on a cringing dove

  and the dove flits out from under, the hawk screaming

  over the quarry, plunging over and over, his fury

  driving him down to beak and tear his kill—

  so Achilles flew at him, breakneck on in fury

  with Hector fleeing along the walls of Troy,

  fast as his legs would go. On and on they raced,

  passing the lookout point, passing the wild fig tree

  tossed by the wind, always out from under the ramparts

  down the wagon trail they careered until they reached

  the clear running springs where whirling Scamander

  rises up from its double wellsprings bubbling strong—

  and
one runs hot and the steam goes up around it,

  drifting thick as if fire burned at its core

  but the other even in summer gushes cold

  as hail or freezing snow or water chilled to ice ...

  And here, close to the springs, lie washing-pools

  scooped out in the hollow rocks and broad and smooth

  where the wives of Troy and all their lovely daughters

  would wash their glistening robes in the old days,

  the days of peace before the sons of Achaea came ...

  Past these they raced, one escaping, one in pursuit

  and the one who fled was great but the one pursuing

  greater, even greater—their pace mounting in speed

  since both men strove, not for a sacrificial beast

  or oxhide trophy, prizes runners fight for, no,

  they raced for the life of Hector breaker of horses.

  Like powerful stallions sweeping round the post for trophies,

  galloping full stretch with some fine prize at stake,

  a tripod, say, or woman offered up at funeral games

  for some brave hero fallen—so the two of them

  whirled three times around the city of Priam,

  sprinting at top speed while all the gods gazed down,

  and the father of men and gods broke forth among them now:

  “Unbearable—a man I love, hunted round his own city walls

  and right before my eyes. My heart grieves for Hector.

  Hector who burned so many oxen in my honor, rich cuts,

  now on the rugged crests of Ida, now on Ilium’s heights.

  But now, look, brilliant Achilles courses him round

  the city of Priam in all his savage, lethal speed.

  Come, you immortals, think this through. Decide.

  Either we pluck the man from death and save his life

  or strike him down at last, here at Achilles’ hands—

  for all his fighting heart.”

  But immortal Athena,

  her gray eyes wide, protested strongly: “Father!

  Lord of the lightning, king of the black cloud,

  what are you saying? A man, a mere mortal,

  his doom sealed long ago? You’d set him free

  from all the pains of death?

  Do as you please—

  but none of the deathless gods will ever praise you.”

  And Zeus who marshals the thunderheads replied.

  “Courage, Athena, third-born of the gods, dear child.

  Nothing I said was meant in earnest, trust me,

  I mean you all the good will in the world. Go.

  Do as your own impulse bids you. Hold back no more.”

  So he launched Athena already poised for action—

  down the goddess swept from Olympus’ craggy peaks.

  And swift Achilles kept on coursing Hector, nonstop

  as a hound in the mountains starts a fawn from its lair,

  hunting him down the gorges, down the narrow glens

  and the fawn goes to ground, hiding deep in brush

  but the hound comes racing fast, nosing him out

  until he lands his kill. So Hector could never throw

  Achilles off his trail, the swift racer Achilles—

  time and again he’d make a dash for the Dardan Gates,

  trying to rush beneath the rock-built ramparts, hoping

  men on the heights might save him, somehow, raining spears

  but time and again Achilles would intercept him quickly,

  heading him off, forcing him out across the plain

  and always sprinting along the city side himself—

  endless as in a dream ...

  when a man can’t catch another fleeing on ahead

  and he can never escape nor his rival overtake him—

  so the one could never run the other down in his speed

  nor the other spring away. And how could Hector have fled

  the fates of death so long? How unless one last time,

  one final time Apollo had swept in close beside him,

  driving strength in his legs and knees to race the wind?

  And brilliant Achilles shook his head at the armies,

  never letting them hurl their sharp spears at Hector—

  someone might snatch the glory, Achilles come in second.

  But once they reached the springs for the fourth time,

  then Father Zeus held out his sacred golden scales:

  in them he placed two fates of death that lays men low—

  one for Achilles, one for Hector breaker of horses—

  and gripping the beam mid-haft the Father raised it high

  and down went Hector’s day of doom, dragging him down

  to the strong House of Death—and god Apollo left him.

  Athena rushed to Achilles, her bright eyes gleaming,

  standing shoulder-to-shoulder, winging orders now:

  “At last our hopes run high, my brilliant Achilles—

  Father Zeus must love you—

  we’ll sweep great glory back to Achaea’s fleet,

  we’ll kill this Hector, mad as he is for battle!

  No way for him to escape us now, no longer—

  not even if Phoebus the distant deadly Archer

  goes through torments, pleading for Hector’s life,

  groveling over and over before our storming Father Zeus.

  But you, you hold your ground and catch your breath

  while I run Hector down and persuade the man

  to fight you face-to-face.”

  So Athena commanded

  and he obeyed, rejoicing at heart—Achilles stopped,

  leaning against his ashen spearshaft barbed in bronze.

  And Athena left him there, caught up with Hector at once,

  and taking the build and vibrant voice of Deiphobus

  stood shoulder-to-shoulder with him, winging orders:

  “Dear brother, how brutally swift Achilles hunts you—

  coursing you round the city of Priam in all his lethal speed!

  Come, let us stand our ground together—beat him back.”

  “Deiphobus!”—Hector, his helmet flashing, called out to her—

  “dearest of all my brothers, all these warring years,

  of all the sons that Priam and Hecuba produced!

  Now I’m determined to praise you all the more,

  you who dared—seeing me in these straits—

  to venture out from the walls, all for my sake,

  while the others stay inside and cling to safety.”

  The goddess answered quickly, her eyes blazing,

  “True, dear brother—how your father and mother both

  implored me, time and again, clutching my knees,

  and the comrades round me begging me to stay!

  Such was the fear that broke them, man for man,

  but the heart within me broke with grief for you.

  Now headlong on and fight! No letup, no lance spared!

  So now, now we’ll see if Achilles kills us both

  and hauls our bloody armor back to the beaked ships

  or he goes down in pain beneath your spear.”