The Iliad of Homer
Page 38
It were too much toil for me, as if I were a god, to tell all this,
for all about the stone wall the inhuman strength of the fire
was rising, and the Argives fought unhappily, yet they must fight
on, to defend their ships. And all the gods who were helpers
180 of the Danaäns in the fighting were dejected in spirit.
But the Lapithai fought on and closed in the hateful fighting,
and there the son of Peirithoös, powerful Polypoites,
struck Damasos with the spear through the bronze-sided helmet,
and the brazen helmet could not hold, but the bronze spearhead
185 driven on through smashed the bone apart, and the inward
brain was all spattered forth. So he beat him down in his fury.
Then he went on to kill Pylon and Ormenos. Meanwhile
Leonteus, the scion of Ares, struck down Antimachos’
son, Hippomachos, with a spear cast into the war belt
190 and afterward drawing his sharp sword out of the scabbard
made a rush through the crowding men, and struck from close up
Antiphates first, so that he crashed on his back to the ground, then
beat down along the prospering earth Menon and Orestes
and Iamenos, all beaten down in rapid succession.
195 Now as these were stripping their men of the shining armor,
the fighting men following with Poulydamas and Hektor,
who were most numerous, and bravest, and beyond others furious
to smash the wall, and set fire to the vessels, these still
were divided in doubt as they stood there at the ditch’s edge.
200 As they were urgent to cross a bird sign had appeared to them,
an eagle, flying high and holding to the left of the people
and carrying in its talons a gigantic snake, blood-colored,
alive still and breathing, it had not forgotten its warcraft
yet, for writhing back it struck the eagle that held it
205 by chest and neck, so that the eagle let it drop groundward
in pain of the bite, and dashed it down in the midst of the battle
and itself, screaming high, winged away down the wind’s blast.
And the Trojans shivered with fear as they looked on the lithe snake
lying in their midst, a portent of Zeus of the aegis.
210 And now Poulydamas stood beside bold Hektor and spoke to him:
“Hektor, somehow in assembly you move ever against me
though I speak excellently, since indeed there is no good reason
for you, in your skill, to argue wrong, neither in the councils
nor in the fighting, and ever to be upholding your own cause.
215 Now once more I will speak out the way it seems best to me.
Let us not go on and fight the Danaäns by their ships. I think
it will end as the portent was accomplished, if the bird sign
that came to the Trojans as we were trying to cross was a true one,
an eagle, flying high and holding to the left of the people
220 and carrying in its talons a gigantic snake, blood-colored,
alive, but let it drop suddenly before winning his own home,
and could not finish carrying it back to give to his children.
So we, even though in our great strength we break in the gates
and the wall of the Achaians, and the Achaians give way before us,
225 we shall not take the same ways back from the ships in good order;
since we shall leave many Trojans behind us, whom the Achaians
will cut down with the bronze as they fight for themselves by their vessels.
So an interpreter of the gods would answer, one who knew
in his mind the truth of portents, and whom the people believed in.”
230 Looking darkly at him tall Hektor of the shining helm answered:
“Poulydamas, these things that you argue please me no longer.
Your mind knows how to contrive a saying better than this one.
But if in all seriousness this is your true argument, then
it is the very gods who ruined the brain within you,
235 you who are telling me to forget the counsels of thunderous
Zeus, in which he himself nodded his head to me and assented.
But you: you tell me to put my trust in birds, who spread
wide their wings. I care nothing for these, I think nothing of them,
nor whether they go by on our right against dawn and sunrise
or go by to the left against the glooming mist and the darkness.
240 No, let us put our trust in the counsel of great Zeus, he who
is lord over all mortal men and all the immortals.
One bird sign is best: to fight in defense of our country.
Why are you so afraid of war and hostility? Even
245 though all the rest of us were to be cut down around you
among the Argive ships, you would run no danger of dying
since your heart is not enduring in battle nor a fighter’s.
But if you shrink away from the murderous work, or turn back
some other man from the fighting, beguiling him with your arguments,
250 at once beaten down under my spear you will lose your own life.”
He spoke, and led the way, and the rest of them came on after him
with unearthly clamor, and over them Zeus who delights in the thunder
drove down from among the hills of Ida the blast of a windstorm
which swept the dust straight against the ships. He was mazing the minds
255 of the Achaians, and giving glory to the Trojans and Hektor,
and they in the confidence of the portents shown, and their own strength,
worked to break down the great wall of the Achaians. They tore
at the projections on the outworks, and broke down the battlements
and shook with levers the jut of the buttresses the Achaians
260 had stuck in the earth on the outer face to shore their defenses.
They tore at these, in hope of breaking down the Achaians’
wall, but now the Danaäns did not give way in front of them,
but they, fencing the battlements with the hides of oxen,
hurled from the wall at the enemy who came on beneath it.
265 The two Aiantes, walking up and down the length of the ramparts,
urged the men on, stirring up the warcraft of the Achaians,
and stung them along, using kind words to one, to another
hard ones, whenever they saw a man hang back from the fighting:
“Dear friends, you who are pre-eminent among the Argives, you who
270 are of middle estate, you who are of low account, since
all of us are not alike in battle, this is work for all now,
and you yourselves can see it. Now let no man let himself
be turned back upon the ships for the sound of their blustering
but keep forever forward calling out courage to each other.
275 So may Olympian Zeus who grips the thunderbolt grant us
a way to the city, when we beat off the attack of our enemies.”
Such was their far cry, and they stirred the Achaians’ war strength.
And they, as storms of snow descend to the ground incessant
on a winter day, when Zeus of the counsels, showing
280 before men what shafts he possesses, brings on a snowstorm
and stills the winds asleep in the solid drift, enshrouding
the peaks that tower among the mountains and the shoulders out-jutting,
and the low lands with their grasses, and the prospering work of men’s hands,
and the drift falls along the gray sea, the harbors and beaches,
285 and the surf that breaks against it is stilled, and all things e
lsewhere
it shrouds from above, with the burden of Zeus’ rain heavy upon it;
so numerous and incessant were the stones volleyed from both sides,
some thrown on Trojans, others flung against the Achaians
by Trojans, so the whole length of the wall thundered beneath them.
290 And not even then might the Trojans and glorious Hektor
have broken in the gates of the rampart, and the long door-bar,
had not Zeus of the counsels driven his own son, Sarpedon,
upon the Argives, like a lion among horn-curved cattle.
Presently he held before him the perfect circle of his shield,
295 a lovely thing of beaten bronze, which the bronze-smith hammered
out for him, and on the inward side had stitched ox-hides
in close folds with golden staples clean round the circle.
Holding this shield in front of him, and shaking two spears,
he went onward like some hill-kept lion, who for a long time
300 has gone lacking meat, and the proud heart is urgent upon him
to get inside of a close steading and go for the sheepflocks.
And even though he finds herdsmen in that place, who are watching
about their sheepflocks, armed with spears, and with dogs, even so
he has no thought of being driven from the steading without some attack made,
305 and either makes his spring and seizes a sheep, or else
himself is hit in the first attack by a spear from a swift hand
thrown. So now his spirit drove on godlike Sarpedon
to make a rush at the wall and break apart the battlements.
And now he spoke in address to Glaukos, son of Hippolochos:
310 “Glaukos, why is it you and I are honored before others
with pride of place, the choice meats and the filled wine cups
in Lykia, and all men look on us as if we were immortals,
and we are appointed a great piece of land by the banks of Xanthos,
good land, orchard and vineyard, and ploughland for the planting of wheat?
315 Therefore it is our duty in the forefront of the Lykians
to take our stand, and bear our part of the blazing of battle,
so that a man of the close-armored Lykians may say of us:
‘Indeed, these are no ignoble men who are lords of Lykia,
these kings of ours, who feed upon the fat sheep appointed
320 and drink the exquisite sweet wine, since indeed there is strength
of valor in them, since they fight in the forefront of the Lykians.
’ Man, supposing you and I, escaping this battle,
would be able to live on forever, ageless, immortal,
so neither would I myself go on fighting in the foremost
325 nor would I urge you into the fighting where men win glory.
But now, seeing that the spirits of death stand close about us
in their thousands, no man can turn aside nor escape them,
let us go on and win glory for ourselves, or yield it to others.”
He spoke, nor did Glaukos disobey him nor turn aside from him.
330 They, leading the great horde of the Lykians, advanced straight onward,
and the son of Peteos, Menestheus, shivered as he saw them
since they came against his bastion and carried disaster upon it.
He scanned the rampart of the Achaians in the hope of seeing
some great chief who could beat back the bane from his company,
335 and saw the two Aiantes, insatiate of battle, standing
on the wall, and Teukros even now coming up from the shelter,
and close by, but he was not able to cry out and make them
hear, so great was the clamor about him as the shouts hit skyward,
as shields were battered with missiles, and the helmets crested with horse- hair,
340 and the gates, which all had been slammed shut, and the Trojans standing
against them were trying to break them down and force their way in.
At once he sent Thoötes off as a runner to Aias:
“Go on the run, brilliant Thoötes, and call Aias here,
or better, both Aiantes, since that would be far the best thing
345 that could happen, since here headlong destruction is building against us.
Such is the weight of the Lykian lords upon us, who even
before now have shown as deadly men in the strong encounters.
But if in their place also hard work and fury have arisen,
at least let powerful Telamonian Aias come by himself,
350 and let Teukros follow with him, with his craft in the bow’s use.”
He spoke, nor did the herald disobey when he heard him,
but went on the run along the wall of the bronze-armored Achaians
and came and stood by the two Aiantes, and spoke to them straight out:
“Aiantes, leaders of the bronze-armored Argives: Menestheus,
355 beloved son of Peteos engendered of Zeus, desires you
to go where he is and meet the danger, if only for a little;
both of you for choice, since that would be far the best thing
that could happen, since there headlong destruction is building against him.
Such is the weight of the Lykian lords upon him, who even
360 before now have shown as deadly men in the strong encounters.
But if in this place also hard fighting and fury have arisen,
at least let powerful Telamonian Aias come by himself
and let Teukros follow with him, with his craft in the bow’s use.”
He spoke, and huge Telamonian Aias did not disobey him,
365 but at once called out in winged words to Aias, the son of Oïleus:
“Aias, now you two, yourself and strong Lykomedes,
must stand your ground and urge on the Danaäns to fight strongly.
I am going over there to meet the attack, and afterward
I will come back soon, when I have beaten them back from the others.”
370 So speaking Telamonian Aias went away, and with him
went Teukros, his brother by the same father, and following them
was Pandion, who carried the curved bow for Teukros.
They kept inside the wall as they went, till they came to the bastion
of high-hearted Menestheus, and found men who were hard pressed there,
375 for the strong lords and men of counsel among the Lykians
came on against the battlements like a darkening stormwind,
and they charged forward to fight with these, and the clamor rose high.
First to kill his man was Telamonian Aias.
It was Sarpedon’s companion in arms, high-hearted Epikles,
380 whom he struck with a great jagged stone, that lay at the inside
of the wall, huge, on top of the battlements. A man could not easily
hold it, not even if he were very strong, in both hands,
of men such as men are now, but he heaving it high threw it,
and smashed in the four-sheeted helm, and pounded to pieces
385 the bones of the head inside it, so that Epikles dropped
like a diver from the high bastion, and the life left his bones.
And Teukros with an arrow struck the strong son of Hippolochos,
Glaukos, as he was swarming aloft the wall’s high bastion,
where he saw the arm was bare of defense, and stayed his warcraft;
390 he sprang down from the wall, secretly, for fear some Achaian
might see that he had been hit and vaunt with high words over him.
Sarpedon, as soon as he was aware that Glaukos had gone back,
was downcast, nevertheless he did not forget his warcraft
but striking with his spear at Alkmaon, the son of Thestor,
395 stabbed him, then wren
ched the spear out, and he following the spear fell
on his face, and the armor elaborate with bronze clashed about him.
And Sarpedon, grabbing in both ponderous hands the battlements,
pulled, and the whole thing came away in his hands, and the rampart
was stripped defenseless above. He had opened a pathway for many.
400 Aias and Teukros aimed at him together, and Teukros
hit him with an arrow in the shining belt that encircled
his chest to hold the man-covering shield, but Zeus brushed the death spirits
from his son, and would not let him be killed there beside the ships’ sterns;
and Aias plunging upon him stabbed at the shield, but the spearhead
405 did not pass clean through. Still, he pounded him back in his fury
so that he gave back a little space from the battlement, and yet not
utterly gave way, since his heart was still hopeful of winning glory.
He whirled about and called aloud to the godlike Lykians:
“Lykians, why do you thus let go of your furious valor?
410 It is a hard thing for me, strong as I am, to break down
the wall, single-handed, and open a path to the vessels.
Come on with me then. This work is better if many do it.”
So he spoke, and they, awed at the reproach of their leader,
put on the pressure of more weight around their lord of the counsels.
415 And on the other side the Argives stiffened their battalions
inside the wall, and a huge fight developed between the two sides.
For neither could the powerful Lykians break in the rampart
of the Danaäns, and so open a path through to the vessels,
nor had the Danaän spearmen strength to push back the Lykians
420 from the rampart, once they had won to a place close under it;
but as two men with measuring ropes in their hands fight bitterly
about a boundary line at the meeting place of two cornfields,
and the two of them fight in the strait place over the rights of division,
so the battlements held these armies apart, and across them
425 they hewed at each other, and at the ox-hide shields strong-circled
guarding men’s chests, and at the fluttering straps of the guard-skins.
Many were torn in their white flesh by the bronze without pity
wherever one of the fighters turning aside laid bare
his back, and many were struck with the spear carried clean through the shield.
430 Everywhere the battlements and the bastions were awash
with men’s blood shed from both sides, Achaian and Trojan.