Pray god the news will never reach my ears!
Yes but I dread it so—what if great Achilles
has cut my Hector off from the city, daring Hector,
and driven him out across the plain, and all alone?—
He may have put an end to that fatal headstrong pride
that always seized my Hector—never hanging back
with the main force of men, always charging ahead,
giving ground to no man in his fury!”
So she cried,
dashing out of the royal halls like a madwoman,
her heart racing hard, her women close behind her.
But once she reached the tower where soldiers massed
she stopped on the rampart, looked down and saw it all—
saw him dragged before the city, stallions galloping,
dragging Hector back to Achaea’s beaked warships—
ruthless work. The world went black as night
before her eyes, she fainted, falling backward,
gasping away her life breath ...
She flung to the winds her glittering headdress,
the cap and the coronet, braided band and veil,
all the regalia golden Aphrodite gave her once,
the day that Hector, helmet aflash in sunlight,
led her home to Troy from her father’s house
with countless wedding gifts to win her heart.
But crowding round her now her husband’s sisters
and brothers’ wives supported her in their midst,
and she, terrified, stunned to the point of death,
struggling for breath now and coming back to life,
burst out in grief among the Trojan women: “O Hector—
I am destroyed! Both born to the same fate after all!
You, you at Troy in the halls of King Priam—
1 at Thebes, under the timberline of Placos,
Eetion’s house ... He raised me as a child,
that man of doom, his daughter just as doomed—
would to god he’d never fathered me!
Now you go down
to the House of Death, the dark depths of the earth,
and leave me here to waste away in grief, a widow
lost in the royal halls—and the boy only a baby,
the son we bore together, you and I so doomed.
Hector, what help are you to him, now you are dead?—
what help is he to you? Think, even if he escapes
the wrenching horrors of war against the Argives,
pain and labor will plague him all his days to come.
Strangers will mark his lands off, stealing his estates.
The day that orphans a youngster cuts him off from friends.
And he hangs his head low, humiliated in every way ...
his cheeks stained with tears, and pressed by hunger
the boy goes up to his father’s old companions,
tugging at one man’s cloak, another’s tunic,
and some will pity him, true,
and one will give him a little cup to drink,
enough to wet his lips, not quench his thirst.
But then some bully with both his parents living
beats him from the banquet, fists and abuses flying:
‘You, get out—you’ve got no father feasting with us here!’
And the boy, sobbing, trails home to his widowed mother ...
Astyanax!
And years ago, propped on his father’s knee,
he would only eat the marrow, the richest cuts of lamb,
and when sleep came on him and he had quit his play,
cradled warm in his nurse’s arms he’d drowse off,
snug in a soft bed, his heart brimmed with joy.
Now what suffering, now he’s lost his father—
Astyanax!
The Lord of the City, so the Trojans called him,
because it was you, Hector, you and you alone
who shielded the gates and the long walls of Troy.
But now by the beaked ships, far from your parents,
glistening worms will wriggle through your flesh,
once the dogs have had their fill of your naked corpse—
though we have such stores of clothing laid up in the halls,
fine things, a joy to the eye, the work of women’s hands.
Now, by god, I’ll burn them all, blazing to the skies!
No use to you now, they’ll never shroud your body—
but they will be your glory
burned by the Trojan men and women in your honor!”
Her voice rang out in tears and the women wailed in answer.
BOOK TWENTY-THREE
Funeral Games for Patroclus
So they grieved at Troy while Achaea’s troops pulled back.
Once they reached the warships moored at the Hellespont
the contingents scattered, each man to his own ship,
but Achilles still would not dismiss his Myrmidons,
he gave his battle-loving comrades strict commands:
“Charioteers in fast formation—friends to the death!
We must not loose our teams from the war-cars yet.
All in battle-order drive them past Patroclus—
a cortege will mourn the man with teams and chariots.
These are the solemn honors owed the dead. And then,
after we’ve eased our hearts with tears and dirge,
we free the teams and all take supper here.”
All as one
the armies cried out in sorrow, and Achilles led the chant.
Three times they drove their full-maned stallions round the body,
Myrmidon soldiers mourning, and among them Thetis stirred
a deep desire to grieve. And the sands grew wet,
the armor of fighting men grew wet with tears,
such bitter longing he roused ...
Patroclus, that terror who routed Trojans headlong.
Achilles led them now in a throbbing chant of sorrow,
laying his man-killing hands on his great friend’s chest:
“Farewell, Patroclus, even there in the House of Death!
Look—all that I promised once I am performing now:
I’ve dragged Hector here for the dogs to rip him raw—
and here in front of your flaming pyre I’ll cut the throats
of a dozen sons of Troy in all their shining glory,
venting my rage on them for your destruction!”
So he triumphed
and again he was bent on outrage, on shaming noble Hector—
he flung him facedown in the dust beside Patroclus’ bier.
And down to the last unit all eased off their armor,
fine burnished bronze, and released their neighing teams
and took their seats by the swift runner Achilles’ ship,
Myrmidons in their thousands, and he set before them all
a handsome funeral feast to meet their hearts’ desire.
And many pale-white oxen sank on the iron knife,
gasping in slaughter, many sheep and bleating goats
and droves of swine with their long glinting tusks,
succulent, rich with fat. They singed the bristles,
splaying the porkers out across Hephaestus’ fire
then poured the blood in cupfuls all around the corpse.
But now their commander, swift Achilles was led away
by Achaea’s kings, barely able to bring him round—
still raging for his friend—to feast with Agamemnon.
As soon as the party reached the warlord’s tents
they ordered the clear-voiced heralds straightaway
to set a large three-legged cauldron over the fire,
still in hopes of inducing Peleus’ royal son
to wash the clotted bloodstains from his body.
He spurned their offer, firmly, even swore an oath:
“No, no, by Zeus—by the highest, greatest god!
It’s sacrilege for a single drop to touch my head
till I place Patroclus on his pyre and heap his mound
and cut my hair for him—for a second grief this harsh
will never touch my heart while I am still among the living ...
But now let us consent to the feasting that I loathe.
And at daybreak, marshal Agamemnon, rouse your troops
to fell and haul in timber, and furnish all that’s fitting,
all the dead man needs for his journey down the western dark.
Then, by heaven, the tireless fire can strike his corpse—
the sooner to burn Patroclus from our sight—
and the men turn back to battles they must wage.”
So he insisted. They hung on his words, complied,
rushed to prepare the meal, and each man feasted well
and no man’s hunger lacked a share of the banquet.
When they had put aside desire for food and drink
each went his way and slept in his own shelter.
But along the shore as battle lines of breakers
crashed and dragged, Achilles lay down now,
groaning deep from the heart,
near his Myrmidon force but alone on open ground
where over and over rollers washed along the shore.
No sooner had sleep caught him, dissolving all his grief
as mists of refreshing slumber poured around him there—
his powerful frame was bone-weary from charging Hector
straight and hard to the walls of windswept Troy—
than the ghost of stricken Patroclus drifted up ...
He was like the man to the life, every feature,
the same tall build and the fine eyes and voice
and the very robes that used to clothe his body.
Hovering at his head the phantom rose and spoke:
“Sleeping, Achilles? You’ve forgotten me, my friend.
You never neglected me in life, only now in death.
Bury me, quickly—let me pass the Gates of Hades.
They hold me off at a distance, all the souls,
the shades of the bumt-out, breathless dead,
never to let me cross the river, mingle with them ...
They leave me to wander up and down, abandoned, lost
at the House of Death with the all-embracing gates.
Oh give me your hand—I beg you with my tears!
Never, never again shall I return from Hades
once you have given me the soothing rites of fire.
Never again will you and I, alive and breathing,
huddle side-by-side, apart from loyal comrades,
making plans together—never ... Grim death,
that death assigned from the day that I was born
has spread its hateful jaws to take me down.
And you too,
your fate awaits you too, godlike as you are, Achilles—
to die in battle beneath the proud rich Trojans’ walls!
But one thing more. A last request—grant it, please.
Never bury my bones apart from yours, Achilles,
let them lie together ...
just as we grew up together in your house,
after Menoetius brought me there from Opois,
and only a boy, but banished for bloody murder
the day I killed Amphidamas’ son. I was a fool—
I never meant to kill him—quarreling over a dice game.
Then the famous horseman Peleus took me into his halls,
he reared me with kindness, appointed me your aide.
So now let a single urn, the gold two-handled urn
your noble mother gave you, hold our bones—together!”
And the swift runner Achilles reassured him warmly:
“Why have you returned to me here, dear brother, friend?
Why tell me of all that I must do? I’ll do it all.
I will obey you, your demands. Oh come closer!
Throw our arms around each other, just for a moment—
take some joy in the tears that numb the heart!”
In the same breath he stretched his loving arms
but could not seize him, no, the ghost slipped underground
like a wisp of smoke ... with a high thin cry.
And Achilles sprang up with a start and staring wide,
drove his fists together and cried in desolation, “Ah god!
So even in Death’s strong house there is something left,
a ghost, a phantom—true, but no real breath of life.
All night long the ghost of stricken Patroclus
hovered over me, grieving, sharing warm tears,
telling me, point by point, what I must do.
Marvelous—like the man to the life!”
So he cried
and his outcry stirred in them all a deep desire to grieve,
and Dawn with her rose-red fingers shone upon them weeping
round the wretched corpse. At daybreak King Agamemnon
ordered parties of men and mules to haul in timber,
pouring from the tents with a good man in charge,
the lordly Idomeneus’ aide-in-arms Meriones.
The troops moved out with loggers’ axes in hand
and sturdy cabled ropes as mules trudged on ahead.
Uphill, downhill, crisscross, zigzag on they tramped
and once they reached the slopes of Ida with all her springs,
quickly pitching themselves at towering, leaf-crowned oaks,
they put their backs into strokes of the whetted bronze axes
and huge trunks came crashing down. They split them apart,
lashed the logs to the mules and their hoofs tore up the earth,
dragging them down to level ground through dense brush.
And all the woodcutters hoisted logs themselves—
by command of Idomeneus’ good aide Meriones—
and they heaved them down in rows along the beach
at the site Achilles chose to build an immense mound
for Patroclus and himself.
With boundless timber piled
on all sides of the place, down they sat, waiting, massed.
And at once Achilles called his Myrmidons keen for battle:
“Belt yourselves in bronze! Each driver yoke his team!
Chariots harnessed!” Up they rose and strapped on armor
and swung aboard the war-cars, drivers, fighters beside them—
and the horse moved out in front, behind came clouds of infantry,
men by thousands, and in their midst his comrades bore Patroclus.
They covered his whole body deep with locks of hair they cut
and cast upon him, and just behind them brilliant Achilles
held the head, in tears—this was his steadfast friend
whom he escorted down to the House of Death.
When they reached the site Achilles had pointed out
they laid Patroclus down and swiftly built his body
a fitting height of timber.
And now the great runner remembered one more duty.
The Iliad Page 78
